


Choosing Sides and Crooked Lines

by carriecmoney



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/M, Gen, Harry Potter Next Generation, M/M, Quidditch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-18 11:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1427194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carriecmoney/pseuds/carriecmoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean Kirschstein didn’t expect his new status as Ravenclaw Quidditch captain to open him up to a secret world of kitchen meetings, undercover friendships, and more face time with the exact three students who are supposed to be his mortal enemies than he ever thought possible. But, hey, if it means he gets to talk to his long-time crush Marco Bodt more, it all works out well, right? Harry Potter!AU, Quidditch-focused. Set 25ish years after Deathly Hallows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ravenclaw vs. Hufflepuff (friendly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {A/N: Somehow, no one managed to talk me out of writing this embarrassing AU. I apologize to everyone in advance for this.  
> [tumblr](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com)}

The first week of any Hogwarts year was always a crazy shitstorm of bad directions and new things that dumped me _way_ out of my comfort zone, and my fifth year was no different. It was my first year as Ravenclaw Quidditch captain, and I’d already gotten a mix of congratulations and threats from all parties, which I responded to with my usual grace and charm.

“Hey Christian! Whose dick did you have to suck to get that badge?”

“Your mum’s!” I yelled back at Eren Jaeger, a Gryffindor Beater, as he passed by my breakfast spot. Jaeger stopped in his tracks and spun on his heels, eyes bright. Uh-oh.

“Me mum’s _dead_ , hornslug.” Ah, hell.

“Oh, uh, sorry, shite, uh-”

The other Gryffindor Beater and Jaeger’s sewn-on shadow Mikasa Ackerman came up beside Jaeger, radiating rage without changing her face. “Then maybe you should think before you speak.” She whisked Jaeger away before either of us could react, leaving me red-faced, staring, with the kids who were awake enough to notice sniggering at me. I ducked down into my eggs while Armin sighed beside me.

“You know, I could’ve told you not to make ‘your mum’ jokes at Eren.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t.” I scowled at him as the evil little angel spread jam on a muffin. He shrugged. I groaned and slumped forward on the table. “Why am I friends with you?”

“Because I’m the only one who’d put up with you for four minutes, let alone four years,” he said with a smile. “Plus, who else would make your practice schedules?” I kicked his ankle as the mail flew in.

I didn’t expect anything from that – Mère and my sister Angie were caught in a vineyard somewhere in the Loire Valley and wouldn’t get out for a few months, and Dad usually waited at least a week before writing. Which is why I didn’t look up.

Which is why I got hit in the head with an owl.

“ _Oi!_ ” The owl fluttered around my head with its too-big grey wings, talons digging into my shoulder. “Stop it, you feather-brained creature-”

It took some beating, but the owl settled itself on my shoulder, extending its leg with a low, proud hoot. “I’m gonna kill whoever decided owls should deliver shite,” I muttered as I untied the roll of parchment from its legs. Armin laughed and stroked its wing; it cooed, snapped at my hair a few times, and took off, leaving little tears in my robes. I sneered at its tailfeathers and unrolled the note, Armin reading over my elbow after he magicked away the rips.

_If you think you’re cool, come down to the kitchens after dinner tonight. Captains only!_

_PS – Bring your homework!_

It wasn’t signed with a name, but there was a doodle of a rose crossed with a broomstick. Armin hummed.

“Well, can’t hurt to see what Rose Weasley would want with you.”

I blinked at him. “The Gryffindor captain? _That_ Rose Weasley?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, the Rose Weasley that’s Head of Slytherin.” I stuck out my tongue at him, and he smeared jam on it with his knife. Strawberry.

“Hey! Rude!” I licked it away as the bell rang for the first class. I slung my bookbag over my shoulder as breakfast faded away.

“Seriously, though, I think you should go,” Armin said as we followed our fellow Ravenclaws to Charms. “If I’m interpreting that note right, the other captains will be there, too, and it’d be a great chance to scope.”

I wrinkled my nose. Slytherin’s captain was Scorpius Malfoy, a sixth year Seeker who’d been captain the last two years. Hufflepuff’s new captain was an unknown – unlike my stupid house, they knew how to keep their mouths shut, and they didn’t have any legacies on their team.

“Yeah, all right. It’d be worth it just to see a Weasley and a Malfoy willingly occupy the same space.” Armin’s eyes took on that particularly evil glint that made me want to duck behind the nearest suit of armor.

“Oh, I can’t _wait_ to see Eren’s face when you beat him.”

“Aren’t you two friends? Sort of?”

He flapped his hand. “All’s fair in love and Quidditch.”

* * *

Classes flew by that day. Before I knew it, Armin was kicking me out of the Great Hall and down the stairs, hissing questions I could ask Weasley in my ear. I tried to get a good look at the other houses’ tables as I went by, but the current Weasley quota at Gryffindor was borderline clannish, a mass of red that was hard to distinguish from this distance. Malfoy was nowhere to be seen, but he had this nasty way of hiding in plain sight that made someone with his body type actually a decent Seeker. He was quiet, for such a lanky bloke.

The noise of the Great Hall fell away behind me as I headed down to the kitchen hallway. Rumor had it that the Hufflepuff common room was right next door, but none of those lucky buggers would confirm or deny. Probably too smug in not having to walk to kingdom come to get to bed at night.

My sister had shown me the way in here as her parting gift before she graduated, in union with her handing me the Quidditch captain title with a hissed ‘ _You better not fuck this up, Jeannie_.’ Merlin, she was gonna kill me if I lost before Christmas.

I tickled the pear and pulled on the handle that it transformed into. The painting swung outward to show a bustling scene of busy house-elves, scurrying about with hundreds of dinner remains. It must have just ended upstairs. I clambered through the portrait hole, stepping in enough that it could close behind me. Most of the house-elves didn’t even blink an eye at me, but a few close to the door turned their green goose egg eyes my way.

“Hey! Little Sister Christian!”

I whirled at the call, and there were Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy, sitting across from each other at a small table shoved in a corner like it was the easiest thing in the world. An odd sort of twirl dipped in my stomach – relief? Anxiety? Gas? I frowned and made my way over, keeping to the borders of the enormous kitchen to stay out of the house-elves’ way. They managed to bump into me anyhow, and I was very ruffled when I finally stopped at the end of their table. “ _What_ did you call me?”

Weasley grinned. “Well, Ang was Sister Christian, and you’re the little her, so.”

“It’s _Kirschstein._ ”

She shrugged. “Continental shit. Your sis couldn’t get me to say it right, either.”

Jean raised his eyebrows. “None of this crap about you calling my sister Ang would have anything to do with why she went out of her way to show me the kitchen entrance after recommending me for the captain spot, would it?”

Weasley grinned wider and tapped the side of her freckled nose. “Not bad, Little Sister.” She picked up her quill again. “Go ahead and make yourself comfy, I’ll explain more when the Huff shows up.”

I looked at Malfoy, but he had his nose in a book and that stupid secretive Slytherin grin on, so I sighed and collapsed on the bench next to him. He seemed at least marginally safer than Crazy Miss Weasley.

It was quiet for a while – a nice, easy quiet, that I normally only found with Armin in front of the Ravenclaw common room fireplace. I pulled out my Transfiguration homework and tried to remember where I’d stopped the night before.

I’d just caught up with myself when, typical, someone interrupted. The portrait door swung open, and we all looked up as a dark-skinned boy my age climbed over the sill.

Oh no. Oh, shite.

He looked around exactly like I had – confused, fearful – and Weasley called out to him. “Dottie Bodt!” He jerked, then smiled and weaved through the garden of house-elves towards us.

I curled my lip at her. “How long did you think about these stupid names?”

She stuck her tongue at me, ears red, but Malfoy answered. “Too long.” I glanced at him, and he shook his head with a smile.

The new kid ran up and slid onto the empty seat next to Weasley, panting a bit. “Sorry I’m late! It’s a mite harder to sneak away when you’re a Prefect.” The collar around his shoulders had the thick black band of a Hufflepuff Prefect, the badge pinned at the clasp. Shite, now I was staring at his neck.

Weasley whistled. “Prefect _and_ Quidditch captain? They must like you a lot, Bodt.”

He shrugged, still smiling, and looked up at me. Fuck my _face_. He grinned. “Hey Jean!”

“Uh.”

“You two know each other?”

He shrugged again. “You spend a few years of classes together, you pick up a few things. Right?”

“Right.” Like a huge, gigantic, troll-sized fancy for the cute Hufflepuff with the freckles and floppy hair that professors loved to pull up to the front of the class as a ‘volunteer’. “Hey, Bodt. _Ow!_ ”

Weasley frowned after kicking my shins under the table. “First names only in the Captains’ Corner.”

I snorted. “What kind of name is the Captains’ Corner?” I frowned at her. “Hey, then why’d you get to call me Little Sist-”

“No questions.” I closed my mouth, but kept scowling. Girl could _kick_. “I get the nickname privileges ‘cause seniority.” Horseshit. “But there will be no Malfoying, Bodting, Christianing-”

 _“Kirschstein-_ ”

“ _Or_ Weasleying here. Got it?”

“Fine, whatever. But, Captains’ Corner? Really?”

“Well, we are all captains, and this is a corner.” Malfoy – Scorpius, I guess? – leant into the corner next to him. “It’s a bit silly, but it works.”

Bodt – _Marco_ – twirled a weird piece of sharpened wood between his fingers. “All right, point taken. So, why’ve we never heard about this before? I mean, I hear pretty much everything that happens in this castle, and I’ve never heard a peep about any secret Quidditch captain meetings, like, ever.”

Both _Rose_ and _Scorpius_ shrugged. “That’s because no one’d ever believe it, I guess.”

I leant back against the wall behind me, stretching my legs and bumping Marco’s in the process. I jerked them away. “So, why? What’s the point?”

“No point.” Scorpius stroked the barbs of his quill. “It’s just a thing we do.”

Marco and I raised our eyebrows at each other. He smiled. “Well, it would be nice not to have to hate you.”

Rose cackled. “That’s the best part, though! We meet up here whenever we can – it’s not often, you know how tight those practice schedules can get – and make up insults about ourselves for the others to say in the corridors! It’s brilliant!”

I snorted. “So, if I said that people like to call me horse-face, then…”

“Hey Kirschstein, where’s your saddle?” Marco said, miming snapping reins. Luckily, Rose and Scorpius were laughing too hard to see anything, ‘cause from how my face felt, I’m sure it was about the color of Rose’s hair. _Fuck_ my _face_. Marco winked at me – _winked_ , the schmuck.

“I- You said my last name right.”

“Yeah, it’s not like it’s _that_ hard.” He smiled.

“Oh. Yeah.”

Scorpius coughed the last of his laughter away. “So. Before we get too far into this – what’s off limits?”

“No Mudblood.”

Scorpius jerked a nod at Marco, whose normal smile had turned down. It looked _wrong_.

“No poor jokes for me,” Rose said. “Scorp knows this one-”

“ _Ow_ \- Rose, why?”

“-but no cracks about the Weasleys and more children than they can afford, right?”

“Family jabs in general. Not a stellar idea,” Scorpius drawled. We all nodded.

“Now.” Rose leant forward. “Who wants to go first?”

We talked until the house-elves kicked us out by means of turning off all the lights, and we had to use our wands to pack up and say good-bye, each going our own way at the painted fruit bowl.

I only realised I hadn’t touched my homework when I got back to my dorm.

* * *

And that was the tipping point. Now I was seeing the other captains everywhere. Scorpius liked to make little scorpions appear in my hair and see how long it took me to scream, the smarmy git. Rose had this thing with thorns that I should’ve seen coming, and she’d break out into some old Muggle song about boys not wanting to play no more with you, it’s true, complete with rock band backup. They weren’t in my year, though, Merlin be praised, so I only had to deal with their brand of “good-natured” teasing at meals or breaks.

But Marco.

We’d always been aware of each other – when there are only forty kids in your year, it’s hard not to be – but we’d never really talked about anything important. Which worked just fine for me. The less I spoke to him, the less chance there was of me doing something embarrassing and making him think I’m a barmy idiot and scaring him away forever – or, worse, making him realise that I fancied him _so much_.

Yeah, I knew that I fancied him – I had since Longbottom had brought him up to do some exercise in Herbology first year and accidentally covered him in purple flower petals – but there was no reason on this green earth I had to _act_ on it.

Now, though. Now, he’d been reminded that I existed, and that we had things in common, and that he could be a fucking tease in public and get away with it because it was expected. After all, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff had a rivalry at least as old as Gryffindor and Slytherin. Right?

“Hey, Kirschstein! Catch!”

I looked up from reviewing my Defense Against the Dark Arts homework just in time to catch the apple Marco threw at my head. _Click-click-click… thunk_. “Oi!”

He winked – his favorite thing to do, apparently. “Figured you’d want a treat.” The people behind him laughed – Sasha Blouse and Bertl Hoover, the two other Hufflepuffs in our year on their team. On _his_ team.

“Oh, go choke on a dick.”

He planted his hands on my desk and leant in close – too _fucking_ close. “You offering, Kirschstein?”

“Bodt, that’s enough, go sit down like a good boy.” Professor Levi, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, said from behind _The Daily Prophet_ , feet propped up on his desk. Marco _blew me a fucking kiss_ before walking away. “And stop gaping like a fish, Kirschstein, or I’ll put a hook in your lip.” I snapped my jaw shut and slouched down in my chair, trying to hide from the snickers. Levi slapped his desk with his paper, and they stopped mid-titter. He stood – not that you could really tell – and called for the homework. I passed the stack of them from my row to the left and bit absentmindedly into Marco’s apple.

It was perfect, just the right mix of crisp and juicy with a tart edge. Merlin, just. Fuck him _and_ his freckles.

* * *

Tryouts for our teams were that weekend. Mine were Sunday morning, which I hoped meant that I’d only get the truly dedicated to show up and I’d get a nice crew of hard-working, seasoned upperclassmen. Hah. Even I couldn’t kid myself like that.

Most of my sister’s team had graduated with her, leaving the only returning players as me and Mina Carolina, my Seeker. Angie’d been the Keeper – yet another reason she and Rose had gotten along like a house on fire – and the Chasers and my Beater partner had all been year mates. My own year mates were all terrible. Even Armin, as much as he liked Quidditch, couldn’t put a Quaffle through a hoop if he was planted with two feet on the ground and the hoop was the size of a classroom.

Mina and I got there first, so we found a good spot in the center of the pitch to wait. It was overcast and muggy, but it probably wouldn’t rain until that afternoon, right on Marco’s perfect little head.

“I don’t believe it.” Mina’s whisper pulled me out of cursing every one of Marco’s freckles, but she was pointing to one of the stands –

“Is that a _Weasley_ and a _Malfoy_ in the same stand?”

Not just a Weasley and a Malfoy, but all three of the other captains were sitting in the stand, trying not to look like they were chatting up the impending storm. Mina groaned.

“Can’t we kick them out?”

“What’d be the point?” They’d just squeeze it out of me tonight, like we had last night with Scorpius and Rose. I mounted my broom. “Be right back.”

I kicked off and flew up to their stand, already growling. When I got to them, Rose grinned at me. “Problem, Little Sister?”

“Yeah, I got a problem, and it’s called your _face_ at my _tryouts_.” I bumped up against the front edge of the stand, and slumped my upper body over it, hands dangling. “This is gonna suck _spawn_.”

“Oh, lighten up, horse boy,” Scorpius said, patting my head. I slapped his hand away.

“You’re jinxing it! Now I’m just gonna get a pile of second-years who’ve never held a broom in their short-ass lives and I’m gonna lose every game to you _schmucks_ and my dad’s gonna kick me out of the house as a disgrace to the Kirschstein family name – Angie’s gonna _kill_ me-”

“Jean.” Marco’s face appeared in front of me. “Breathe.”

I did. And again. He smiled, that soft one he never showed me in public anymore. “It’ll be fine.” He held out a small brown block of something. “Sugar cube?”

I tried to whack him over the head, but he ducked. I snatched the sugar cube from his still-outstretched hand and crunched it while Rose chortled. “Stop feeding me,” I mumbled as I backed away from the stand. After a final glare at all of them, I flew back down to Mina and the few people who had shown up while I was up there.

“So?” Mina asked. I ground the fragments of the sugar cube in molars.

“I’m gonna kill them.”

“…What are you eating?”

I scowled and swallowed. “Nothing.”

* * *

Tryouts weren’t as bad as I feared, but they weren’t nearly as good as I hoped. I moaned as I stripped off my gear, sweaty skin reveling in the cold locker room air. I might have some good Chasers in the Scamander twins, and the Boot kid’d make a good Keeper after a few one-on-one training sessions…

I changed into less-awful clothes on autopilot, wanding away extra dirt in a poor excuse for a bath, and slung my broomstick across my shoulders before ducking out of the locker room. Mina’d left already, heading back to the castle for lunch and a rinse. Smart girl. I was feeling that too-light breakfast now – Marco’s sugar cube felt like decades ago.

Oh, right. Marco. Damn.

Instead of turning towards the castle, I walked along the edge of the pitch, empty for the moment. Taking the stairs to the top of the bleachers felt highly unnecessary, so I got on my broom and flew up the back of the stand the captains had been in, dropping down over the rain canopy. Rose jumped, then frowned.

“Jerkface.” Scorpius snorted.

“Now, now, Rosie, there’s no need to call people names.” She wrinkled her nose as I landed and sprawled out over three rows of benches. He raised an eyebrow at me. “All right there, mate?”

“Just go ahead and kill me now, spare yourselves the effort later.” I groaned and knocked my head back against the wood, eyes closed. “Angie’s gonna _slaughter_ me over winter break.”

“Yeah, probably.” We went quiet, just the occasional raindrop hitting the canvas canopy and the growing shouts from the pitch.

I must’ve dozed off, because I was startled awake by one of Scorpius’s scorpions pinching my ear. “Augh, geroff-”

The scorpion vanished, and I glared at him. “You could’ve just poked me or something.”

“What, and missed the show?” He smiled with teeth, and Rose giggled. “If you want to be teased less, Jean, you shouldn’t react like you do.” He jerked his head towards the pitch. “Tryouts are starting.”

“Oh. Thanks, maybe.” I sat up properly and leant forward, watching the black and yellow-spotted crowd below divide and lift off, Marco easy to find as his voice, normally soft, rang out over the assembly. I sighed and rested my chin on the front of the stands, watching his dark head bob twenty meters below.

I was so fucked.

* * *

Bugger me being so fucked. All of _Ravenclaw_ was so fucked.

I tugged at my fringe and fell back on the couch Armin had claimed that afternoon, groaning like I’d broken my leg. I wish I had. It’d have hurt less than watching Marco yell through the rain at his potentials, who were all bigger than mine and weren’t on shoddy school brooms and stayed on point even though it was _pouring_. Even Rose and Scorpius seemed intimidated by the Hufflepuffs – _Hufflepuffs_!

I still hadn’t bathed since my tryouts, and I knew I was sweating like a boar and smelling like an old sock. I didn’t care. Armin sighed and rested his book on the part of me that had fallen over his lap – my chest.

“That bad?”

“ _Worse._ ” I fumbled blindly for a pillow to pull under my head; Armin assisted without a word, sliding one under my grasping fingers. “I mean, our pool’s okay, I guess, but it’s not great. All the people who can actually fly are tiny little pishers who look like one good hit with a Bludger’d knock ‘em dead, and none of the upper years even showed up.”

Armin turned a page. “They hate you that much?”

“I guess so.” Some people just never forgave a bloke whose sister played favorites. “Ar, the Huff team is gonna be so _stacked_.”

We compared notes for a while – he’d gone in my place yesterday so I could get some actual work done, and knew how the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams might fare. As we talked and plotted, the natural light faded to gold, then grey.

“Shouldn’t you go take a bath so you can get to the kitchens in time?”

I sat up, stretching. “Yeah, I guess.” Armin didn’t even look up from his book as I yawned and stood, but he managed a wave when I grabbed my gear headed up to my dorm to get cleaned up.

* * *

My first practice was the last day of September. It was ghastly.

“It’s hopeless. I’m dead,” I complained to Scorpius late that night. It was just the two of us in the kitchens (Captains’ Corner was a dumb name, and I refused to use it). Rose had whatever Weasley business she had; Marco’d jumped in earlier, made his ‘but I have Prefect rounds’ excuse, grabbed a sandwich from the tray at our table, and jumped out again. I didn’t really mind either absence. Rose was an insatiable chatterbox, and Marco…

At least Scorpius knew how to shut up.

Now, he shrugged to my bitching. “You’ll manage. Rose’n I did, our first times.”

“Your teams probably didn’t fail as hard as mine.”

“It couldn’t have been _that_ bad.”

“One of my Chasers went missing at the beginning of practice to chase after Snurgles or some shite and didn’t show up until sundown.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Ah.”

I doodled swirls on the edge of my training plans – fat lot of good they’d do. “Kids can’t focus.”

“Did you when you were thirteen? I know I didn’t.” I glanced up and caught the tail of a smile. “Right prat, I was.”

“Well, what else d’you expect, growing up as you did?” A pause. “Sorry. No offense.”

He shrugged, a sharp shoulder jerk. “I get it.” He poked around the remains of the sandwiches we’d been picking over for the last hour. “Dad doesn’t know about this whole thing, by the by.”

I snorted. “I bet he’d blow a gasket.” He grinned and picked up a roast beef sandwich.

“He’d probably dig out the old thumbscrews in the basement if he knew I’d been associating with a Weasley of my own free will.”

“ _Thumbscrews?_ ”

“The Malfoys were always a weird lot.”

“You said it, not me.” I stretched. “Well, if he finds out, who cares? You’re almost of age. You can get the hell out of here and move on, then.”

His smile tightened. “It’s not that simple.”

“It could be.” He blinked at me. I sighed and pushed aside my training plans to worry about them tomorrow. “Say, you any good at Arithmancy?”

* * *

October wore on, and my kids slowly fumbled from ‘people on brooms at the same time’ into something like a team. The Scamander twins, who I still couldn’t tell apart, were disappointing and useless in that they only played well with a reason to care, but my third Chaser, Sue Samuels, a fourth year with a good eye and a better broom, was picking up the best ways to kick them in the arse. A heavy hand was necessary with those flyheads. My Beater partner, Holly Hardwicke, was new to Quidditch, but her Muggle roots included one of their sports that involved hitting a ball with a bat as hard as they could. If she could just figure out how to stay on her broom at the same time, she’d do just fine. Plus, she laughed at my jokes.

My Keeper, Matthew Boot, was probably the most talented of the new kids, but he was fall-shy – a bad trait in a Keeper, whose moves were built on sudden dives. He kept letting Quaffles past him that he could’ve easily blocked if he just stopped _flinching_. What he needed was training, but Angie was still caught in Mère’s vortex of grapes and sunshine, and was too busy writing to me about the beauty of cross-pollination to come home and give her replacement pointers. Armin was my saving grace through all this, not only keeping me on track with classes, but coming to all our practices and observing on foot, picking out flaws for me to hammer out later.

“What we need, I think,” he said as we walked back up to the castle after a muddy Wednesday practice, “is to get ourselves blooded in battle.”

“I’m sorry, _what?_ ”

He flushed. “Oh, uh, I’ve been reading too much, ah, medieval history lately.” My senses were calling bullshit, but I let it go. “I mean, you need a solid practice game. Training is all well and good, but you don’t really know how a team works until you play seven on seven.”

“Huh. Not a bad idea there, Ar.” We slipped through the main doors, propped open for the last nice bits of autumn breeze. “Let’s see what my friends downstairs have to say, shall we?”

* * *

I’d hoped that I could get Scorpius and his adequate Slytherins to do the thing with me instead of the scary Gryffindors or the terrifying Hufflepuffs, so that this wouldn’t end up as a morale killer instead of a wake-up call. Of course, my hopes were nothing in the face of Marco’s deep-rooted need to help anyone and everyone.

“A practice game? Sounds like fun!”

I forced a smile at him that Thursday evening. “Yeah, uh, my kids’ve never really played together really before, and we’re really a new team, and they could really use some, uh, seasoning.”

He laughed. “You just said ‘really’ four times.”

“Well. They _really_ need it.”

He propped his chin on his hand, still smiling. “Well, I’d _love_ to help, if it means we’d get an actually decent game come November.” He winked, then turned to the other two. “Unless one of your teams could use the experience, too?”

Rose grinned. “I want the experience of watching you pound Little Sister here into custard cream.” I gulped.

“Besides, if you two arrange it in public, it’d seem more like a year fight and less like a captains’ conspiracy.” Scorpius didn’t look up from his Potions essay, but he had that stupid little smirk on.

“Oh, good point, Scorp.” Marco lifted his glass of pumpkin juice and gave me _A Look_ over its edge that turned my legs to sun-melted butter. He _had_ to be doing this on purpose. He winked.

“Ready to face the puny little Hufflepuffs, Kirschstein? _Ow!_ ” Rose glowered.

_No, not really._

I grinned. “You’re on.”

* * *

We settled on issuing the challenge the next afternoon. It was a gorgeous day – probably the last one we’d have all year – and everyone was out by the lake during lunch break, enjoying the sunshine. We didn’t pick out a way to do the do, though, deciding just to wing it when the opportunity arose. I was sitting under a tree, listening to Armin mutter about star charts, watching Marco skipping rocks out onto the lake with his friends and seeing if anyone could get past the barrier of the giant squid. I grinned, chuckling, and elbowed Armin.

“You ready for this?”

Armin looked up from his Astronomy book. I raised my wand, jerking my head in Marco’s direction. Armin raised a skeptical eyebrow. “What are you plotting, Jean?”

“Just a little practice.” I gave my wrist a sharp flick, staring at Marco’s arse (that wasn’t hard). He jerked, whipped his head around. Not forceful enough. I flicked harder.

Marco went sailing forward, landing with an ugly _splash_ in the algae-clogged lake. Some people laughed; his friends gasped and took steps forward, but I hadn’t hit him too far. He stood up in the knee-deep water, dripping weeds and spitting water. I collapsed onto Armin, laughing as loud as possible.

Squelching footsteps drew closer. “Think that’s _funny_ , do you, Kirschstein?”

I grinned up at him, ignoring the swoop of my stomach at his honest to God _scowl_. “A bit, yeah, actually.” He squeezed out his sopping robes over my bookbag. “Hey!”

“You.” He pointed at me with his index. “Me.” A jerk at his chest with a thumb. “Backup.” He gestured to his friends – teammates. “Tomorrow, four o’clock on the pitch.”

I stood, tired of getting yelled at while sitting down. “You’re _on_ , Dottie Bodt.” I smirked my best. “I hope your broomstick can work as a mop, too.” He turned red, gaping like I’d pushed him to the bottom of the lake instead of just off the shore. It was kinda fun, being on the other side of this. I pulled a long piece of lakeweed off his head, tossing it to the side. “Mermaid got your tongue?”

He spun around and stamped away, socks still squirting water. “See you tomorrow, Bodt!” He stuck up a V-sign behind him. I threw back my head and laughed.


	2. Slytherin vs. Gryffindor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {A/N: Once again, I apologize in advance for this. [tumblr](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com) [writing playlist](http://8tracks.com/carriecmoney/choosing-sides-and-crooked-lines)}

The silence in the locker room after the ‘scrimmage’, as Hardwicke called it, could have eaten the whole castle. My kids all sat there, thunderstruck, staring into the abyss, covered in sweat and dirt and maybe a little blood.

I was a little stunned, too. I’d gone into this knowing we were outclassed and that Marco had my number in so many ways, but it’s one thing to know it and another to experience it.

A decent number of people had shown up to the pitch to watch; word spread fast in Hogwarts. We’d even gotten to use the school balls, and Levi showed up to referee without any of us having to ask. The Hufflepuffs didn’t look that frightening when we met them on the ground, but one blow of Levi’s whistle and we learnt our lesson fast.

Armin’s slip of the tongue about being ‘blooded in battle’ hadn’t been so melodramatic after all.

The Chasers were what really got to me. Sure, they had a veritable wall at the hoops with Bertl Hoover, and their Seeker Ada Longbottom was proving to be not just a product of professor-spawn favoritism, and their Beaters had great arms and great aim. But their _Chasers_.

Marco, Sasha Blouse, and Connie Springer were the triad of death and destruction out there. They were fast, passed like nothing I’d ever seen, and seemed to read each other’s minds out there. My kids were getting better, but it was hard to do anything when Blouse intercepted half our passes, or Springer kept ‘accidentally’ bumping into the skinny Scamanders and almost flipping them over. Marco was a league of his own, always the center of any attack, directing his team with the field general voice from tryouts while flying circles around everyone else. Even when the Bludger I sent his way nicked the tail of his broom and sent him spinning, he’d still managed to score on my Keeper who got flinchier the more he missed.

I sighed and broke the locker room spell, running a hand through my sweaty hair. It probably looked dumb as hell after an hour under my helmet. “Well. Now you know why I was worried.”

Hardwicke snorted. One of the Scamander twins – Lysander? – looked up from his gloves. “That must never happen again.”

I crossed my arms. “Well, if we don’t get our acts together pronto, it can and it _will_ happen again. So we need to buckle down and focus if we’re ever gonna stand a chance against them next time. Got it?” Everyone nodded. “We’ve got about two months until then. Barely any time at all, if you ask me. I’ll see if we can’t bump up to three practices a week.” I dragged a hand down my face. “Ugh. M- mmm. Bodt’s gonna be unbearable for, like, a week.”

“Want me to beat him up for you?” Samuels asked, punching her open palm with narrowed eyes. I smiled.

“Nah, ‘cause then you’d get detention and miss practice, and we can’t afford that. I can deal with Bodt myself.” I slung my bag around my neck. “Well, if anyone needs me, I’ll be hiding in the prefect’s bathroom.”

Hardwicke smiled at my weak joke and held up her hand for a hi-five as I walked by and left them to think.

* * *

“You know, if you were _really_ trying to drown yourself, the lake would be a lot faster.”

I glared up at Marco, who was still in his Quidditch robes, and slipped down in the water until my mouth was almost under the surface. “What, come to gloat?”

He smiled. “Maybe a little.” He stripped off his robes, piece by piece, and I slid over to the taps to put in more hot water and get away from _that_. I scowled at the knobs until I heard him enter the water and take a spot cattycorner to mine. Great. “Mostly, though, I wanted to apologise.”

I snorted, spraying bubbles everywhere. “What, for being really fucking good?”

He ducked his head to hide _that_ smile. “Well, not for that, no. But four hundred ten to twenty seemed a little… excessive.”

“Yeah, well, now my kids know what a real team plays like, so maybe they’ll their act together.”

“You keep complimenting me like that, Kirschstein, and people might get the wrong idea about us.”

 _What if I want them to get the wrong idea about us?_ I slid under the water for a minute to scrub at my hair and shake those thoughts away before resurfacing. “You know, you could call me Jean, when we’re alone, not just when Rose kicks you. If you want to.”

He spread his arms out along the edge of the bath behind him and flashed me a lazy grin. “But Kirschstein has such a nice ring to it.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “It does when _you_ say it. Every time someone calls me Christian, it’s all I can do not to say no, actually, I’m Jewish.” Marco snorted, body jerking forward and hand slapping over his mouth.

“Oh my God, say that to a pureblood when I’m around, please. Those louts never get Muggle religion references.” His face brightened. “Oh! I know just the thing to make it up to you!”

“No, really, you don’t have to-”

“I insist. You’ll love it. You coming to Captains’ Corner tonight?”

“It’d just be prolonging the inevitable if I didn’t.”

He smiled. “Great, I’ll bring it there.” He shook his head underwater for a bit, scrubbed down, then climbed out without warning, obviously not shy of the full monty. I didn’t look away fast enough, and – was it really _possible_ to have freckles on your arse?

He dried off with one of the towels from the cabinet, then pulled on a shirt and jeans from his Quidditch bag. He gave my hair a ruffle and threw a “See you then!” over his shoulder as he ran out the door.

I pushed off the bench, fell to the bottom of the bath, and screamed.

* * *

I was the first one in the kitchens that evening. Well, more like that afternoon. Predictably, Ravenclaw as a whole wasn’t too happy about getting trampled by the Hufflepuffs, even if it wasn’t an official game, and were being rather rude about it. I’d tried to escape to the library, but when the people who hate you are Ravenclaws, the library can hardly be called an ‘escape’. At least no one but the other captains would find me in the kitchens.

It was the first time I’d been there alone, and it was kind of nice. The house-elves were used to me by now, and waved at me when I climbed in and made me tea as I greeted a few by name – I was getting better at telling them apart. It was all in the ears. Here, I could almost forget about my earlier humiliation. It was just me, my homework, and a huge array of brisk efficiency swirling around me.

The kitchens had no windows, so I had no grasp on the passage of time as I ate through my assignments for the week. I got thrown out of my homework trance a few mugs of tea later when the portrait swung open and Rose appeared. I scowled down at my Arithmancy book, the words swirling, as she came over.

I’d braced myself for laughter, ridicule, a ‘good bit of fun’, as she called it. What I got instead was a hip pressed to my shoulder and a hand carded through my hair. I looked up at her face to find a soft smile. “Doing okay there, Jean?”

“Yeah. I guess.” I sighed and looked down. “Just hope my house gets over it soon.”

“Mmm, I know what you mean.” I closed my eyes and leant into her side. Her scratching was going to put me right to sleep. “Mine didn’t speak to me for a week after I lost to Slytherin my first game. They’ll blame it on you for a while, but Quidditch is a team sport. It’s never only one person’s fault, win or lose. Just remember that.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Rose.”

She gave my hair a last fluff, then shoved away with a hip thrust and sat down across from me. “Well, since you’re emotionally stable. That was one helluva beating Marco gave you.”

“ _Thanks_ , Rose. Thanks a lot.”

She grinned. I propped my book up between us, hiding my face from her laughter.

Marco was the next to arrive, all happy and flushed and gorgeous, still in the same shirt and jeans he’d put on in the bath. I’d probably seen him in Muggle clothes before, but I’d never been able to stop and appreciate the way a flimsy cotton shirt stretched across his chest, and damn, that was a nice shoulder-to-waist ratio, and trousers were _severely_ underrated in the Wizarding world –

I coughed and smashed my open book on my head. Marco and Rose laughed at me.

“Trying to learn through osmosis, Jean?”

I lifted the book and frowned at him. “Osmosis?”

He rolled his eyes. “Never mind.” He shoved my shoulder. “Scoot.”

“Boss- _y_.” I slid over so he could sit next to me, taking my careful array of homework with me. I had to reach across his front to get my tea mug, arm close enough to feel the heat from his torso. He didn’t notice my blush, too busy digging around in his bag, but Rose made eye contact with me and raised her eyebrows.

‘ _Shut up_ ,’ I mouthed at her. She shot me a smile eerily similar to Scorpius’s evil Slytherin smirk.

“Ah-ha!” Marco sat straight, triumphant and oblivious to our exchange, brandishing a small black and white jar. He set it in front of me. “Happy early birthday.”

“M’birthday’s in April,” I said as I picked up the tub. “What is it?”

“Hair product! Here.” He took it from my hands, my skin zapping where our fingers brushed, and unscrewed the top. “There’s wizard hair stuff, I know, but I’ve found that Muggle cosmetics are much simpler, and a _lot_ more reliable.” He stuck the tips of his fingers in the white cream there and smeared it over his hands. He held them over my head, then paused. “May I?”

“Uh. Yeah, sure.” He spread it through my hair, biting his lip as he lifted it from my scalp. What was with these people and my hair today?

“There.”

He conjured a hand mirror and held it in front of my face. “You can do it how you want, of course, but I like this way best.”

Well, that cinched it. I took the mirror and inspected my new hair – yeah, okay, that was a lot better. Instead of hanging limply on my forehead, the hair product, as he called it, gave life to my hair, standing up and flopping around in new and interesting ways that I could really get used to. I ran a hard through it – it felt a little sticky now, but nothing dramatic. I grinned.

“Since when did you know so much about hair gel, Dottie Bodt?” Rose asked, leaning forward. Marco shrugged.

“It’s a long story, but let’s say for now that I deal in more than pencils.” He twirled one around his thumb – he’d explained pencils to us Wizarding folk a few weeks ago before launching into a terrifying rant about parchment that had us all backing away. When he’d calmed down again, he’d given us each pencils of our own (charmed to look like quill ink), and now I had seen the light.

Rose snorted. “What are you, some kind of drug dealer?”

He winked. “When I need to be.” He screwed the lid back on the jar and held it out to me. “Happy _half_ birthday, then.”

I smiled and shook my head. “Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night.”

I spent the rest of the evening finishing up the week after next’s assignments (never hurt to get ahead) and twisting spirals in my hair, trying to see how long they would stay, while Marco and Rose laughed more at me.

* * *

The first official match of the year was the Saturday after Halloween, pitching Rose against Scorpius. The weeks leading up to it saw scuffles in the corridors and glares across the dinner tables, and probably classroom pettiness that I didn’t have to watch, thank God. The Gryffindor/Slytherin thing hadn’t risen to the violence of before the Battle, but there was still enough antagonism to fuel the general fires.

It was affecting our kitchens meetings, too. One or the other of them was often missing, and if they were both present, then they were short-tempered and terse. Marco and I were forced into middle sibling roles, and let me tell you, that shite gets old _fast_.

That Halloween night – a Friday – was expected to be the worst night for kids sneaking around and fucking shite up, so the higher-ups pulled the Quidditch captains (that weren’t already Prefects) to help with the rounds. I groaned to Armin about having to stay up past my bedtime, but as he was our year’s male Prefect and did this all the time, there was no sympathy to be found in his corner.

After the feast – which was as fantastic as always, I’d have to pay my regards to the chefs – Armin and I stuck around, shadowing the Great Hall as everyone else filtered out. “Luckily, since I’ve got you and Smith assumes that you Quidditch types are soft-” I snorted, but Armin ignored me and continued- “we get the early shift. Now we get to sit around down here until lights out, then take a few circuits around and go to bed.” He fluttered his eyelashes at me. “Because the poor Captain needs his beauty sleep.”

“Oh, shove it, Arlert.”

We sat at our table and talked for an hour or so – about the decorations, about the team, about how in the world could the giant squid have found its way to a loch – as the stragglers trickled back to their dens. After a while, Armin checked his watch and stood. “Almost curfew. Better get going.”

Sure enough, as we stepped into the foyer, the wall sconces dimmed around us. Back in the Great Hall, the flickering jack-o-lanterns went out, only the stars illuminating the magicked cobwebs as they sparkled in the windows.

Armin led the way, used to the path that the Prefects beat every night. I was just a footnote, a bit of extra muscle. I’d assumed that Prefect rounds were dull as a baked potato, but at least tonight, they proved to be entirely the opposite.

We found some Gryffindor second years trying to break into Levi’s classroom to steal pixies or something to let loose in their girls’ dorm. They confessed it all to Armin and me as we shepherded them back to their common room – which was concealed behind a painting of a large woman in an even larger pink dress. Armin took off ten points from Gryffindor, and the portrait lady sniffed at the kids as they mumbled the password, then swung out to admit them. Armin and I stayed for a bit to make sure they wouldn’t try to sneak out again before moving on.  

Peeves the Poltergeist had climbed into a suit of armour and was flying it around the Charms corridor, banging against anything that’d make a sound and singing some stupid song about flying knights and paisley tights. It took both of us and another suit of armour to get him down and out, and then only the threat of strangulation by empty gauntlets kept him from coming back for more, flashing his arse at us as he flew away. We had to find the traumatised armour’s original niche, occasionally having to rescue a greave or vambrace that fell off from its shaking.

On the fourth floor, I heard a soughing from a broom cupboard, which proved to hold two Hufflepuff sixth years in various states of undress, red all _over_ , ugh. Armin took ten points off again and escorted them back to _their_ common room, all the way across the damned castle. They were mute with humiliation, carefully not touching – the bloke had a bit of lipstick on the back of his neck. I just _knew_ it was taking all of Armin’s self-control not to burst out laughing in their faces.

He managed to hold off until they were out of the corridors and we were a floor away before collapsing into giggles. “Oh, their _faces!_ ” He rubbed tears from his eyes. “Surprising snogging is the best part of the job, really truly.”

“You’re a sadist, Ar.” But I chuckled, too – those wide eyes and frozen gropes _had_ been pretty entertaining.  

We made a slow circle back up the castle. I couldn’t stop yawning, and forgave Professor Smith, our Head of House, for imagining that I was ‘soft’ if it meant I could go to sleep earlier.

When we got to the fourth floor and were on the home stretch, I cocked my head – were those voices? Angry, rising, familiar voices. Armin and I exchanged a glance, then drew our wands and crept forward, heading towards the source. Slowly, the voices resolved into one male, one female, then into syllables, then words.

“… have a right to me?” My eyebrows shot up. Scorpius?

“I- I don’t, I just want what’s best for you!” _Rose?_ I heard Armin’s sharp intake of breath. “And that… _twat_ Allaway is hardly good enough-”

“Then who is, Rosie? Huh? You’re not my mum, you don’t get to pass judgment on my friends-”

“Friend. Hah.”

“Yes, _friend_.”

“So, what’m I, a piece of furniture? Like a chair? An- an armoire you can shove all your shite in?”

“Rose, stop that.”

I started forward again – we’d frozen at the argument – but Armin whipped out an arm to stop me. He whispered, “No, they need to work this out on their own.”

“Are you _mad_?” I hissed back. “That’s exactly what _doesn’t_ need to happen!”

“If they get it out of their system-”

“No way, that’s a terrible idea!”

Their voices were moving away, still arguing and getting angrier. Rose’s voice was cracking on every other word, and Scorpius had risen above his usual low tones. The ice in my chest rubbed me raw – this was so, so bad – but what should I do?

My feet were moving before my brain was, following after them. _Break it up, break it up_ – they could work out their shite later, whatever crazy girl problems they were having could wait until they were settled down–

I rounded the last corner in time to see them facing off on the staircase at the end of the corridor, Rose a few steps up and eye level with Scorpius, face blotchy.

“If you could just stop being such a _boy_ for a moment-” She stomped her foot, the sound reverberating oddly. Too loudly. “ _Maybe_ you’d stop fooling _around-_ ” Another stomp. Were those _cracks_ under her foot?

“I’ll do what I want-”

“Argh!” She stomped again. _Definitely cracks_. Bloody hell.

I stepped out of the shadows, hands out. “Rose, hey, calm down-” They both jumped, glared at me hard enough to send me a step back.

“This is none of your _fucking_ ” _STOMP_ “ _business,_ ” _STOMP_ “ _Jean!_ ” _STOMP!_

“Rose, just get off the stairs, we can work this out somewhere else-”

“The stairs?” Scorpius asked, too confused to be angry. He followed my eyes to her feet. “Damn – Rose, don’t-”

“Stop saying that _word!_ ” She stomped one last time just when I got to the foot of the staircase. The stones rumbled under my feet. She looked down. “Wha-”

The stairs buckled, caved. I fumbled for one of them – Scorpius’s robes slipped through my fingers. They fell straight down to the flight a story below, accompanied by half the staircase.

“Shite, shite, shite, oh fucking hell,” I chanted, jumping down the other, undamaged flight of stairs two at a time, dust and rubble shifting around me. “Rose? Scorp?”

“Jean!” Armin’s head appeared at the edge of the new hole. “What happened?”

“Rose got mad and stamped a hole in the floor! You should’ve let me stop them earlier!”

A shift of dusty red – Rose was sprawled over the steps, both whole and fragmented, eyes closed. “Shite.” I shoved aside a slab of granite that was pinning her legs. Too much red. “Ar, go get help! Mr. Gully! I’ll stay here with them!”

“Right!” His head vanished, and I brushed the rock and dust from Rose’s legs – she cried out.

“Rose?”

“Ow.” I breathed. She coughed. “Scor…?”

Oh, right. “No, it’s Jean – hang on-” I stepped around her and felt around for cloth, hands shaking. I cursed some more and flicked my wand at the wall sconce nearest to me. It flared to full light, and there he was, fallen nearly to the foot of the stairs. I jumped down and knelt at his side. “Hey, hey, Scorp, you there?” I turned him on his back – he’d fallen on his face, I think, and his nose was a bloody mess.

“Is… he okay?” Rose asked, voice trembling. I grabbed his wrist and forced myself to calm down and feel more than my own blood pounding in my ears.

There’s the pulse. “Well, he’s alive. His face is all kinds of messed up, and there’s probably more – shite, Dad’s the Healer, not me-”

A hiccup from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder – double-took. Rose was crying again, big gulping sobs. She’d sat up, but her legs were still painful to look at, even under robes.

“This- this is all my fault!” She turned her house collar around to wipe her face with the larger back. I scrambled up the stairs to sit at her side. She threw herself into my chest; I held my hands in limbo, not sure what kind of comfort she needed.

“That was so stupid – my leg _hurts_ , oh my God-” I shushed her and patted her on the back.

“Hey, it’s – it’s all right.”

“Why does he _do_ that?”

I brushed a stray pebble from her hair. “Do what?”

“Make me so – so _mad!_ ” Her hand fisted in the robes at my sternum. “He goes out of his way to flirt with girls I hate, then he brushes me off-” She moved her leg accidentally and gasped. I rubbed her back, up and down. “Then he gets all high and mighty, like I shouldn’t be worried about him, like – it doesn’t _concern_ me. _Ah!_ ”

“Shh.” I gave her a gentle squeeze around the shoulders. “You should calm down, love, or you’re break your leg worse.”

She laughed, choked on her tears. Grimaced. “I think there’s some ribs in there, too.”

“Well, shite.” I tucked her head under my chin. “You’ll be okay, Rose, Gully’ll fix you right up.”

“Yeah.” I kept an eye on Scorpius below, but his chest was rising and falling in an okay rhythm, probably, so I felt all right, staying with Rose. She was smaller in my arms than I’d expected. “ _Why?_ ”

“Us boys are stupid. You know that. Sometimes you just have to beat us over the head before we get it. He’ll come around.”

She wheezed a laugh. “He better.” We sat there in the night quiet, me rubbing circles in her back and her leaking all over my robes.

That’s how Armin and Mr. Gully found us. Rose had fallen asleep; I whispered the bare bones of the accident to Mr. Gully, who was in his dressing gown, as he magicked them onto stretchers. He sighed and shook his head, mumbling about teenagers and hormones.

“You two go along, I’ll take them from here.” He gave the gaping hole in the staircase a look and another sigh. “And I’ll tell the Headmaster about the damage.”

He left us, Rose and Scorpius floating behind him, and with nothing else to do, Armin and I went back up to our tower and crawled into bed.

It was a long, long time before I could fall asleep.

* * *

“Did you hear?”

Hardwicke plopped down backwards on the bench next to me, eyes bright and grin wide. I swallowed my bite of toast. “Wha’?” I snapped. I’d had a terrible night’s sleep and didn’t want to talk to anyone, much less my morning person Beater partner.

“Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy are in the hospital wing!”

“Still?” She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, uh, I heard something about it earlier.” True. “But shouldn’t they be out by now?”

“That’s the thing.” She spun around and pulled the bacon tray her way. “They got in some _huge_ fight last night and demolished a staircase! And now Professor Pixis is putting them under bed arrest.” She took six strips of bacon and ripped into two. “Not allowed ou’ ‘til Sunday!”

I blinked. “But they’ll miss the match! They’ll…” Hardwicke nodded. I whistled. “Oh, that’s demonic.”

“I know, righ’?” She chomped on more bacon through her insatiable grin. “I’s gun’ be awful, and Imma love erry sec’ of i’.”

I swirled my tea. “Do you know what they were fighting about?”

She swallowed. “Probably about whose shit smells better. Who cares? We’re about to watch a Gryffindor-Slytherin match with _both_ captains MIA! Isn’t that great?”

“Fabulous.” I stared blankly at my toast crusts. I wasn’t really hungry anymore. “Say, I gotta go do a thing. Meet you and the rest at the match?”

She gave my arm a friendly punch. “Sure thing, Cap.”

I forced a smile, then left my breakfast behind and trundled upstairs.

Ten minutes later, I shoved open the hospital wing doors, slightly out of breath. Mr. Gully looked up from the paperwork he had spread across one of the unoccupied beds and smiled.

“Oh, it’s you. I was wondering when you’d stop by.”

I nodded. “Yeah, well, I’m here. Where’s…?”

He jerked his thumb down the row of beds. “Weasley’s at the end there, and Malfoy’s in the curtains. Thought it’d be best to separate them.” He winked at me. “I’m here to keep them from sneaking out. Pixis’s orders.”

“Hmm.” Rose was sitting up in bed and talking to a Gryffindor boy in the year below me – her cousin? Brother? One of the Weasleys, anyway. He was glowering at me. Well fuck to you, too, mate. “Can I talk to Scorp then?”

“By all means.” He shuffled paperwork. “Probably would be good for him.”

I nodded my thanks, then walked down the centre aisle to the curtained bed, not meeting the glaring Weasley boy’s gaze. Rose hadn’t noticed me, too busy talking – probably deputising her… relative. I ducked behind the lee of the curtains and tugged on them.

“Hey, Scorp? It’s Jean.”

A muffled sigh. “Yeah, come on.”

I pulled back the curtain and tied it to the post. Scorpius was perfectly fine, lying on his stomach and facing the wrong way on the bed, a book propped in front of him. “’Lo.”

“’Lo.” I sat in the chair at his bedside, abruptly uncomfortable in my own skin. This would’ve been better if he _acted_ ill. “So. What’d you have?”

He didn’t look up from his book, his jawline sharp and defined in this profile view. “Broken nose. _Smashed_ nose, apparently. Pretty bad concussion. My left knee was shattered from the impact. Broken arm.” He slapped his left arm just above the elbow. “There was some internal bleeding somewhere, too.”

I whistled. “But you look fine now?”

He laughed, a sour edge to it. I scowled. “I was fine when I woke up. Didn’t feel a blessed thing. Had some bad dreams, but that doesn’t count.” He banged his head against the foot of the bedframe. “But now I’m stuck here because that _bitch_ ” (he said that a little too loud, in my opinion) “had to get up on her high horse about acceptable company!”

I propped my chin on my hand. “But Allaway _is_ a tart.”

He sneered at me. “I am _well aware_ , Kirschstein.” I held up my hands and leant back in the chair. He deflated, collapsing face-down on his book. “Girls are stupid.”

I bit my tongue a bit too hard. “She probably just doesn’t want you to get the clap.” He snorted into his textbook. “Can you imagine trying to ride a broomstick with that? Oy vey.”

He turned his head so I could see one pale blue eye. “You’re not helping, you know.”

I sighed and sprawled back on the chair. “Well, as Rose so eloquently told me last night, this is none of my fucking business.” He rolled his head back down and groaned. “But. If it were. I’d say you should have a good long think about why a girl who spends time with you would cry about you spending time with other girls.” He grunted. I clapped him on the shoulder and stood. “Want me to tell you how the match goes?”

He shrugged, half a stretch. “No, I’m sure my kids will come crying to me either way.”

“Whatever you want, mate.”

“Hey, Jean?” I paused and met his eyes and weak smile. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”


	3. Ravenclaw vs. Hufflepuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {A/N: I bet you thought this was a Jean/Marco fic. I apologize again. [tumblr](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com) [writing playlist](http://8tracks.com/carriecmoney/choosing-sides-and-crooked-lines) [ART the beautiful saint-tibbles drew for me!!](http://saint-tibbles.tumblr.com/post/82438299581/alls-fair-in-love-and-quidditch-so-save-a-broom)}

Monday after dinner came, and I was the only one who showed up in the kitchens.

I thought I was just early at first. I said hello to the house-elves. They got my tea ready as I spread out my work – today, a bizarre Potions essay that forced us to research experimentation and the great effects thereof, even when not necessarily legal. Professor Hanji could project on us all they wanted, but we were still too scared of the cauldron to feed their crazy impulses. I knew Marco wouldn’t show – Monday was always his practice night, so he never came around then – but I figured that Rose would come – Gryffindor had won on Saturday, proving that good Seeker trumps good Keeper. Or, if she didn’t, Scorpius might decide that the defeat made them even and crawl over in hopes of forgiveness.

I slipped into a homework trance while waiting, and was still waiting when a house-elf came up and tapped me on the elbow.

“Huh?” I blinked up, looked down. “Oh, hello, Teeny.”

She smiled. “Teeny is sorry, sir, but she is needing to clean that.” She pointed at the tea service.

“Oh, yes, of course.” I handed the service down to her – even for a house-elf, she was short – and checked my watch. “Damn.”

She ducked her head in a bow with a toothy grin. “Teeny is thinking it would be wise for Jean Kirschstein, sir, to be going to his bed.”

I laughed and rubbed at my eyes. “Yes, Teeny would be thinking right. Thanks, love.”

“Of course, sir.” She bowed again and walked away. Now that I was aware of my surroundings, the house-elves were much further along in their dinner clean-up than they normally were when I left. I frowned as I started throwing my stuff into my bag. This didn’t sit right. Every past Monday they’d both shown up without fail, so we could complain about how perfect Marco was and try (and not succeed) at coming up with insults for him besides the normal generic shite. Not having them here meant they hadn’t made up, and that would never do. Who would they have to talk to about this whole thing, anyway? Scorpius had always struck me as a lone wolf in his house, and from the way Rose Jr. glared at me in the hospital wing, it was obvious that Rose didn’t tell her team or even her family about being entangled with the other captains, and especially not with a Malfoy. Scorpius had told me outright that his parents didn’t know. There was just me and Marco, and maybe the previous captains-

I paused in my packing. Marco. I could talk to Marco, and maybe we could get this straightened out together. I slung my bag over my shoulder and slipped out of the kitchens, mind full of ways to _make_ them kiss and make up.

* * *

The next day in Defense Against the Dark Arts, I was prepared for Marco’s entry with a note and a charm. I heard his laughter before he came through the door, so I ignored the _swoop_ of my stomach and pulled out the charmed note from my bag, holding it in the cage of my fingers as it struggled.

He walked through the door. “Hey, Bodt!” He looked up as I tossed the note his way, grinning as the folded paper eagle took flight and pecked his nose.

“Hey- _ow!_ ” He tried to catch it against his face, but it darted away just in time, and he slapped himself in the face instead. Everyone laughed as he turned red and my eagle latched its beak on his ear. “Je- just what’s your deal, Kirschstein?”

I smirked. “Just a little preview, Bodt.” He snatched the eagle from the air and crushed it in his fist, frowning.

“If you two are _quite_ done.”

Marco jumped at Levi’s drawl that called from behind the _Daily Prophet_ , then wrinkled his nose at me and dropped the fluttering paper eagle to my desk like a dying fly. I pushed it back at him with my spelled quill-pencil. “Keep it.”

He opened his mouth to retort. I winked. He closed it and took the eagle back without a word and hurried to his desk a few rows behind mine.

It was hard as hell not to turn and see if he’d figured out to open it as Levi folded up his paper and launched into a lesson on cursed objects. Marco was a smart cookie, though – before five minutes had passed, my paper eagle, much maligned from the folding and the crushing, slid up the back of my desk’s leg and into my lap.

_R & S didn’t show up last night. Did you hear about the thing Frinight? It was a <3 fight, not a house fight. Intervention? HELP_

_OK – what should we do? (Like the paper btw)_

God, even his handwriting was perfect. But, ‘btw’? I scratched out a response, making it look like I was taking notes, and dropped it to the floor in a ball, flicking it back with a twitch of my wand. It came back a few minutes later, interrupting my actual notes.

_HogsM? Maybe? Emotions aren’t my thing, hence HELP. (And thanks, it folds better than parch. What’s btw?)_

_Good idea. Talk more 2nite? (btw = by the way. Old Internet slang… Don’t worry about it)_

I added a checkmark next to ‘2nite’, then folded the paper back into its eagle shape (without the magic this time) and sent it back. I’d make him explain what he meant about Internet, too.

* * *

He was waiting for me when I came downstairs that night, all bright smiles and happy thoughts.

“I see you’re using the product I gave you,” he commented with a nod. I busied myself with setting out my Astronomy charts so I didn’t have to make eye contact.

“Oh, well, it’s good stuff.” I glanced up to catch his beam.

“It looks good on you.”

“Thanks, uh – hey, I thought we were talking about Rose and Scorpius, not my hair!”

He laughed. “All right, if you say so.” Teeny trotted over with the tea service and slid it on the table between our homework, ears barely visible over the table, and I smiled my thanks. He spooned sugar into his cup. “So, what’s the damage?”

I sighed and poured my tea black. “They’re both being tossers, that’s what.” I launched into an explanation of Friday’s fight, clarifying how Rose got mad enough to kick down a granite stair, and my hospital wing visit before Saturday’s match. Marco hummed and nodded along, stirring his tea idly with a pencil and head propped up on a palm, watching me and _not helping_.

“I thought maybe, er, they’d get over themselves on their own, but, well, they’re both not here tonight, either, so I think they need outside help.”

Marco stuck his tea-covered pencil in his mouth and smiled around it. “And the obvious people to do that are two fifteen-year-old boys they’ve known for two months, eh?”

I bristled. “Who else is gonna do it, huh? No one but us _knows_ the schmucks like each other! Everyone else probably doesn’t think there’s anything to save at all, and-” I frowned at the table, Rose’s crying about stupid boys floating through my head. “It… doesn’t feel right, not having them here.”

“Mmm.” He was quiet for a long breath, face hidden behind his teacup. When he set it down, he nodded once, face set. “All right. What would you like me to do?”

* * *

Saturday was the first Hogsmeade visit of the year. Being off grounds, even when it was within walking distance of the castle, had a calming effect on the House fighting. Even Gryffindors and Slytherins at least ignored each other instead of picking fights. While the Quidditch captains of the Houses were still expected to hate each other, it meant that I could delegate Armin as my inter-House liaison to pass along my message to Scorpius.

The two of them were now walking just out of hearing range ahead of me on the way down to the village. It was a cold, clear, windy day, and I was perfectly content to walk along on my own and enjoy the blue sky and fresh air while Armin made small talk. I just hoped that Scorpius didn’t have too big a bruise on his ego from the game that he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Quidditch, including me.

Marco and I had spent the week’s kitchen meetings discussing – lots of things, really, he was a really great bloke; my eleven-year-old self had picked who to fancy wisely. But among the conversations about microwaves and dog breeds and Holocaust-surviving grandparents, we’d also talked about our other two captains and how to patch things up without resorting to locking them in a broom cupboard together. We’d agreed that, if it were us, we’ve just want someone who understood to talk to and dump all our shite on, so I was going to meet Scorpius at the Shrieking Shack lookout, which was deserted ever since it was found to only be fake-haunted. Marco was going to take Rose cloths shopping. (“Well, it’s what my mum always makes me do with her after a fight with my dad!”)

Armin didn’t stop talking to Scorpius until we got to the village proper, when Scorpius meandered down the main drag while Armin doubled back to me. I raised my eyebrows at him. “All right, Ar?”

He grinned. “Y’know, for a Malfoy, he’s not all that bad.”

I snorted. “You think I’d bend over backwards like this for just any git?”

He shrugged, leading me towards Honeydukes. “Well, you’re friends with me, so your taste was always questionable.” I shoved his shoulder, smiling, then held open the door as he breezed on by.

Honeydukes was packed, like always. We got separated when I was in line to pay for far too much candy and Eren and Mikasa came and stole Armin away, something about catching up over butterbeer and “washing the Christian off his skin”. Whatever. Ever since Rose’s story about Eren’s first practice where he hit himself in the face with the bat instead of the Bludger, I was more inclined to laugh than fight whenever he showed his mug at me.

I wandered out of the shop, bag heavy, and ambled my way through the village towards the Shrieking Shack lookout. A few of my teammates and some of the other Quidditch-mad types waved at me, flagged me down for a few minutes’ discussion about the team. I lied and said we were doing well, crunching on whatever my hand found in my candy bag as I made my way through, then out of, town.

Scorpius was waiting for me, leaning on the fence at the end of the road. I walked up and leant next to him, holding out my candy bag without a word. He reached in and fished out a Liquorice Wand.

“So.” I popped a piece of Drooble’s in my mouth. “Spill.”

He chomped on the Liquorice Wand and stared at the trashed house on the hill, thinking. I waited.

“Did I ever tell you how Rose and I met?” I shook my head. “Third year, after Christmas holiday. Mum had forced me into a terrible haircut. Made me look like a mushroom. Some kid made fun of it in the hallway. I dislocated his jaw.” I snorted, and he shook his hair (which, now that he mentioned it, probably needed a trim) in front of his face. “Well, naturally, that landed me in a nice round of detention. _Window_ cleaning, if you can believe it. Rose had done something recently, too- I forget exactly, but it involved a toilet seat and her Uncle George.” I chuckled, shaking my head. “Levi made us do the cleaning without magic, but we got to use our brooms to get the high ones, one of us on the outside, other on the inside. Don’t ever tell him, but it was rather fun.” He smiled at the ground. “Well, you know Rosie. Can’t go five minutes without talking. Kept trying to start things through the windows, but I couldn’t hear her, but she couldn’t hear me say that I couldn’t hear her, so I had to sign it… One thing led to another, and by the end of it we hadn’t cleaned nearly as many windows as we should have, and she’d made me laugh more than I had in a year.” He sighed and slumped forward, Liqourice Wand remains dangling forgotten from his hand. “But, that was it, for a while. We didn’t even say goodbye after we were dismissed. I kept trying to wave at her in the hallways, but she was always looking away…” He picked at a splinter in the fence. “Anyway. Nothing happened, until next year, when we were both made captains and indoctrinated into the Captain’s Corner.” He stopped and chewed on his Liquorice Wand again.

“That’s still the dumbest name for a secret club I’ve ever heard, y’know.”

He snorted, spraying bits of liqourice into the mud. “Yeah. But it works.”

We stood like that for a while, eating candy and watching the wind creak through the Shrieking Shack. “Why haven’t you crawled back to her yet, then?”

“A Malfoy never _crawls_ , not even to the girl he fancies.” He jerked, face turning pink. I smirked at him and blew a bubble, popping it into my mouth. “You- you didn’t-”

I grinned wider, chewing my gum with my mouth open. “Didn’t what?”

He scowled and shoved my shoulder before burying his face in his hands. “Hell, if Dad finds out I fancy a Weasley, he’ll _murder_ me.”

I threw my head back and laughed. “Is _that_ all you’re worried about?” He groaned from behind his hands. “Look, I’m not planning on telling anyone, and since Rose fancies you too-” His head whipped up, wide blue eyes on me; I rolled mine. “Oh, _honestly_ , she lets you call her _Rosie_ and _pets_ your stupid scorpions! Girls don’t yell at just any bloke that flirts with other girls, you know!” He turned a darker, blotchier pink and looked away. I watched him for a moment, then rolled my eyes again with my whole head in it. “Oh, just come back to _Captain’s Corner_ , ugh, again and talk to her – just say you’re fucking sorry for whatever the hell she’s mad about. Marco’s buttering her up as we speak, so maybe by the time tonight rolls around she’ll only beat you around a bit instead of put you in the hospital wing.”

“Again.”

I grinned. “Yeah, again.” I turned to lean back on the fence on my elbows and stare down the winding road. “Do you want my opinion?”

“Not really.”

“You two are… good together. When you can get your heads out of your arses.” I whacked his arm with the back of my hand. “So stop making her _cry_ , you git.”

He frowned and rubbed his arm. “So stop hitting me!”

“Promise you’ll come to the kitchens tonight?”

“I have a lot of-” I held up my hand and raised my eyebrows. “ _Fine_. Fine! I’ll come, don’t hit me again.”

I smirked and lowered my hand. “Knew you’d come around.”

After some more chatter about stuff, he left, shivering a little and promising again to come to the kitchens once everyone was back in the castle. I wasted some time on the fence, blowing more bubbles and watching the sky move, so people wouldn’t notice both of us coming from the same place and draw wrong (or right) conclusions. When my gum lost its flavor, I chucked it over the fence and shoved my hands in my pockets, heading back down to the village. Maybe if I hurried I could still catch Armin in the Three Broomsticks.

Hogsmeade was just as crowded as it was when I’d left, and no one gave me any weird looks. Good. I headed towards the Three Broomsticks, but before I could hide from the wind inside, Armin and his Gryffindor tagalongs came out of nowhere and ambushed me, dragging me into a break in the store fronts without so much as a ‘by-your-leave’.

“Hey!” I shook off Eren’s arm, and Mikasa let go of my other one. “What’s the big deal?”

“We’ve got a problem.” Mikasa jerked her head back over her shoulder at the shop across the street – a robes boutique. I pulled a face.

“You have a problem with cloths? But it’s way too cold up here to be naked-”

Eren groaned and pointed more forcefully. Mikasa whapped down his arm. “It’s who’s _inside_ the shop, numbskull!”

I squinted. It was hard to tell from all the people that kept crossing the street in between us and the window, but – oh no.

I glared at Armin from the corner of my eye. He grimaced and gave a tiny shrug. Eren and Mikasa were too busy glowering at the window to see Armin mouth, ‘ _I tried._ ’

Rose and Marco were perfectly framed in the window, Rose spinning and modeling something green and gold while Marco juggled a pile of multicolored cloths and smiled, mouth moving. She stopped spinning and laughed, stepping closer to dig around in the stuff in Marco’s arms.

“What’s Rose doing with the _Hufflepuff_ captain?” Eren hissed. “I bet anything Bodt’s just trying to get at our training schedule or some shite to fuck us over – this is a disaster!” My eyes flicked from the shop to the passersby, and there were more than a few curious glances at the shop’s window. Three girls came out of the shop, giggling and glancing back. _Ugh_.

“Yeah, no kidding.” I blinked and frowned. “Hey, but I’m the Ravenclaw captain, and you two talk to Armin all the time, how d’you know _we’re_ not trying to fuck you over?”

Mikasa waved it off. “Well, you’re not a threat like Bodt’s team.”

“Wha- _HEY_ -”

“People are noticing.” Mikasa’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going to go have a word with my captain.” She strode across the road, Eren in her wake, leaving me and Armin in the mouth of the alley.

“Is this good or bad?” I asked Armin as I watched Mikasa march into the shop.

“I have no idea, but either way, it’ll be fun.”

* * *

Marco’s grin when he threw his bag on the table that night was borderline manic. “People think Rose’n I are _dating_. Isn’t that great?”

I gave him a look over my tea mug. “Define _great_.”

“Well, not _great_ like ‘all-powerful’, but _great_ like ‘amusing as hell’.” He sat down hard enough to shake the table. “Like, of _all_ of us they could’ve gossip-paired, it’s me and Rose. That’s just great.”

My stomach clenched, but I smiled. “What, she too short for you or something?”

He laughed, more teeth than anything. “Nah, she’s nice enough, for a girl, but that’s not really my type.” He winked, and my clenched gut bottomed out. “Besides, her type is obviously brooding and bad blond hair.” He nearly knocked over the sugar bowl with his spell book. “What about you, Jean? What’s your type?”

“Uh-” The painting door opened, and I could have kissed Scorpius when he stepped through and headed over. I smiled and waved a bit too much. He just scowled and stopped at the table, arms crossed and glaring at Marco, who smiled back.

“You’re not trying anything on Rosie, are you?”

Marco scoffed. “Nah, mate, she’s all yours.” Scorpius relaxed and sat next to him, anger fizzled out with a snap. Marco stared at a patch of wall over my shoulder. “Honestly, I’m confused how I’ve been here five bloody years and people are still trying to hook me up with a bird.” He smiled at us. “Personally, if I’m going to be gossip-shagging in a gossip-cupboard, I’d’ve picked one of you two.”

I dropped my pencil to the floor with a clatter and cursed as I dove under the table for it. Marco laughed at me as Scorpius drawled, “No offense, but I’d still prefer Rose.”

“Fair enough.” A foot nudged my side. “You okay down there?”

I hit my head on the table and heard china clatter. “ _Ow_. Yeah, fine.” I came out from under the table, hot-faced and squinting.

Marco righted the creamer and mopped up the little that had spilled with a napkin. “So. What’s your type, Jean?”

God _fucking_ damn it. This boy wouldn’t let it go, would he? I sneered at him. He stretched out his arm straight on the table, cheek on his shoulder, _smiling like a fucker_ and – was he fluttering his eyelashes at me?

“I’d… I-I’d be okay… with… either?” Lie, stone cold lie, but better than the conclusions he’d pull from the truth. He tilted his chin down a little so he was smiling at me through his fringe. I hid my head under an unrolled Transfiguration essay. Scorpius chuckled. “I hate everyone.”

“Oh, are we shaming Jean now?”

I lifted my essay enough to peek out at Rose as she walked up. The other two went quiet, and I sat upright. She nodded at Scorpius. “Hey, Scorp.”

“Rose.” His voice rasped. Marco stood.

“I totally forgot I had a thing to do tonight!” Smooth. Real subtle, Bodt. I rolled my eyes and my essay.

“You don’t have to pretend like that, Dottie Bodt.” Rose smiled, but her tone was quieter than usual as she sat next to me and across from Scorpius. Marco flushed.

“Oh… we’ll just leave you two to it, then.” He shot me a look, but I was already downing the rest of my tea and standing, slinging my bag over my shoulder.

“Don’t kill each other while we’re gone,” I said, squeezing Rose’s shoulder as I passed. She smiled up at me; Scorpius flicked me a little salute, looking a little green around the gills. I gave him a nod and followed Marco’s bouncing into the corridor.

It’d been a while since I’d left the kitchens at this hour – and on a Saturday, too. Marco and I paused when the painting swung closed, shuffling our feet.

“Er.” I looked up from the floor at his smile, more tremulous than usual. “Library?”

I raised my eyebrows. “You want to be gossip-shagging _all_ the captains?”

He laughed, then coughed, smile falling. “Right, er, yeah, you’re probably right, I guess. Then, I’ll guess I’ll-”

“Library sounds great!” His smile came back full force.

“Great! Let’s go!” He led the way, almost dancing, and I had to smile at him.

* * *

Rose and Marco were a main topic of conversation the next day at breakfast. I was with my team, as I’d managed to book the pitch for the full day (maybe with a little bit of pity from Levi, but I didn’t say that out loud). They were arguing about it around me – what it could mean for the year, who was the “bad guy” who’d seduced the other for their secrets, did you hear Mandy Perkins told Lottie Holloway that Bernie Martin caught them sneaking out of a sixth floor classroom after dinner last week? And then…

I stopped paying attention, focusing on my sausages and my practice schedule. Maybe Marco and his lot found this entertaining, but the gossip mill of Hogwarts had worn thin on me a long time ago.

“Cap, you’ve been quiet – what’d’you think?”

“I don’t think Rose is Marco’s type.”

I blinked, frowned, looked up at a grinning Hardwicke. “Uh-” Shite. “I mean, can’t everyone tell that they’re barking up the wrong tree with that one? Mm-Bodt’s gay. He’s so very gay.”

“ _Really?_ ” She sat back, considering me in a way that I Did Not Like. She was getting laps later. “How can you tell?”

I shrugged. “He’s my year, so I’ve seen him around. He doesn’t really hide it.” True, but I still gulped too much orange juice by accident. “He’s not exactly living with the broomsticks, yeah?”

“Hmm.” She tapped her chin. “Wanna bet?”

I snorted. “Bet _what_?”

“Oh, are we gambling?” Samuels leaned in, Boot hovering over her shoulder. Hardwicke smiled, and I could almost see feathers in her cat smile.

“Cap here thinks Weasley and Bodt’s fake, cause he wants Bodt for himself.”

“Ah- No I don’t!”

She stuck her tongue out at me, eyes squinting. “Who _wouldn’t_ want a piece of that arse?” The others laughed, and I massaged my temples. “I’ll put a Galleon against your wishful thinking.”

I narrowed my eyes and tried not to smirk. “Five Galleons that I’m right.”

Boot whistled. “That’s some high-pricing wishing.”

“I’ll add two to Hardwicke’s.” Samuels patted her poof and pulled out coins from it. Natural hair show-off.

Boot held up his hands and backed down. “I’m not playing this game.” He quirked his mouth at me, though. “But I believe you, mate.”

“We believe you, too.” I jumped; the occasions when the Scamander twins spoke in unison creeped me out more than any ghost ever had. They conferred in their weird foreheads-together way, pooling money in their hands, but I was _not_ letting Hardwicke take two twelve-year-olds’ money.

I rolled my eyes as I stood from the table. “Are we a casino or a Quidditch team? Pack it up, it’s practice time.”

Hardwicke’s cat smile curled tighter. “Change the subject all you want, Captain, but it’s nothing more than a nice wet dream.”

“Laps! Ten of them! _On foot!_ ”

“But _Cap!_ ”

* * *

As November drew on, practices got colder and windier, and the nights in the kitchens got warmer and sappier.

Rose and Scorpius finally said the right words that Saturday and were now something like an item. It was a bit odd, because they didn’t feel quite comfortable with being out in public, and still treated each other about the same in the corridors. However, it was more likely to see the scorpion on Rose’s shoulder nuzzle her neck before pinching it, and the rose vines she tripped him up with were more flowers and leaves than thorns. When night fell and it was just the four of us and a battalion of house-elves, though, they were borderline intolerable. Rose’s new seat was in Scorpius’s lap, nestled against his shoulder as she read her textbooks or practiced her incantations. He had to reach around in his storky way to do his own work, but he didn’t seem to mind that his view was obscured by her hair. Marco and I silently agreed to let them have their own lovey peace.

We silently agreed on a lot of things that November. We silently agreed so much that we hardly spoke directly to each other. I was terrified that I’d get babbly and let out one of the many things I didn’t want him to know about, like how my muscles jumped whenever he walked into the room, or how the betting pool on his sexuality that had started with my kids had spread to most of my House, or that I still wanted to know how someone could have freckles on their arse and were there any more than those dozen, on down a long list that ended on Quidditch secrets. So I kept my mouth shut, and he did, too. The week before our game, the only things we talked about were the mutual homeworks we had and passing the sugar bowl, please.

The morning of our match was another bright, clear, cold Saturday. The team that I met in the common room before we went down to breakfast was an oddly subdued one. We had been getting better as a unit in leaps and bounds, and I was quick to remind them of that, but the “friendly” trampling we’d gotten at the hands of the Hufflepuffs two months ago hung over us like the Grey Lady. Breakfast was silent, Hardwicke hard pressed on my left, Boot on my right. When I gave up on my toast and stood, they all stood with me, and we put on our good faces as we walked down the table, returning a few good luck hi-fives and sneering at the Hufflepuff table – their team was already gone.

“Hey, wait up!”

I turned in the open doorway of the Great Hall at Armin’s call and stopped until he caught up to me. “All right, Ar?”

He smiled wide, a little out of breath. “Scorp just wanted me to give you this.” He held out a slip of paper and joke-punched my arm. “Knock ‘em dead.”

“Thanks.” He wagged his fingers in a wave and trotted back – I’d been too busy wallowing in my nerves to see him hiding at the Slytherin table. Sneaky schmuck.

I shrugged and hurried to keep pace with my team, grinning when I unrolled the note, signed with a rose crossed with a broom and a constellation.

_Give ‘im ~~hell~~ HELL!!!_


	4. Slytherin vs. Gryffindor (not friendly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {A/N: I _bet_ you thought you were getting a Jean/Marco fic, not a Rose/Scorpius fic with a side dish of Jean/Marco. I apologize about that confusion again. [tumblr](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com) [writing playlist](http://8tracks.com/carriecmoney/choosing-sides-and-crooked-lines) [art I drew for this chapter's hospital wing scene](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com/post/83072567573)}

By the grace of God, Scamander grudges, dumb luck, a Bludger to Marco’s head that left him a little tilt-silly, and a fantastic Snitch race on Mina’s part, my pathetic little team upset the Hufflepuff powerhouse, two hundred fifty to one hundred forty.

My house went ballistic, and it was _awesome_. None of my team touched the ground again after we got off the pitch, and that’s when I learned that riding on people’s shoulders really wasn’t as grand as it looked. Mina still had her Snitch held high and refused to let anyone touch it, even once we’d safely gotten up the too-many stairs to our common room. We were wind-swept and sweaty and gross and wonderful, and my face hurt from smiling too much.

The common room turned into a party for the rest of the day. Someone snuck in alcohol and candy, and there was a nice banner with all our names and numbers flying around the _SUCK IT HUFFLEPUFF!_ text over little painted broomsticks. It was a nice change of pace, being the big guy in the house to the same seventh years who refused to turn up to my tryouts and wouldn’t give me the time of day in the corridor. I had a few shots of the (probably stolen) firewhisky, enough to send me a little bubbly inside and talking (probably shouting) to more people than just my team and Armin.

A few hours into the party, I was knocked forward a pace or two, head lurching too much, by a giant whack on the back. “ _Oof!_ ”

Taylor Donaghue, a seventh year built along the lines of the castle, laughed, a bit red-faced. “Damn, Kirschstein, I thought a Beater who put Bodt in the hospital wing would be bigger than that!”

“Hah hah.” My heart sank in my stomach. “What do you mean, hospital wing?”

He ruffled my hair, getting his gross palm-sweat all up in it. Ugh. “You knocked the crazy outta him, mate! What a hit!” He held up his shiny hand for a hi-five, which I gave him despite how my skin was itching and crawling and _sinking_.

“Yeah, I totally meant to do that, right…” But he was already moving on, wrapping his gorilla arms around three girls at once and asking them who wanted to do body shots with him. Disgusting.

I looked around; everyone was looking away or not paying much attention to anyone but their conversation partners. Trying for nonchalance, I wove through the crowd, shaking a few hands as people I’d never talked to before stepped in my way to congratulate me. When I finally reached the exit, I stole another look around, then slipped out into the welcome cold of the corridor.

* * *

The walk down to the hospital wing sobered me up a little, so I was only a little loose when I knocked on the double doors. Mr. Gully answered with a confused smile. “Hello, Kirschstein.” He leaned on the door frame, blocking my entrance. “What can I do for you?”

“Uh.” What did I want again? “I just wanted to see Marco and, er, apologise for, ah… putting him here.” Gully raised an eyebrow behind his glasses.

“He’s a bit out of sorts right now, but, all right.” He stepped back and opened the door a bit more. “Only for a tic, though. You gave him quite a bump.” He smiled, and I gave a weak one back.

Marco was propped up against three pillows a few beds in, folding paper planes out of what looked like old medical files. From the wreckage around the rubbish bin across the wing, he’d been at it a while, and with much less than his usual perfect Chaser’s aim. He looked up when I entered and grinned. “Jeannie!”

“ _Jeannie?_ ”

“I think I’ll just leave you to it, then.” Gully winked at me. “Don’t let him fall asleep, yeah?”

“All right.” He retreated to his office, and I approached Marco’s bed like it was an injured badger’s sett. “How you feelin’, mate?”

“Fit as a fiddle!” He giggled, hiccupped. “Okay, maybe not a _fiddle_. Maybe a banjo, or, or a… a hand piano.” He fell back on his pillows so hard he bounced, papers fluttering on his sheets, and smiled too wide at me. “Drugs are hella great.”

“Right...” I sat down in the hard chair by his bed. “I just came by to say that I’m sorry.”

He giggled again and threw his plane at the bin, which fell a good meter short. “Sorry about when?”

“When I knocked you tits over arse barely three hours ago!” God, no wonder Dad was always in a bad mood when he came home, if shite like this is what he had to deal with every day. “I mean, yeah, it’s my job to do that, a bit, I’m a Beater, but you just make me so…” I trailed off when he started humming some jingle I didn’t know and playing with his hands. “A-Anyway, I didn’t mean to hit you _that_ hard, I just got a little carried away…” I heaved a sigh and raked a hand through my hair. “Fuck, I’m sorry, Marco.”

He smiled dreamily at me. “You have really pretty eyes, Jean. Did I tell you that?”

I flushed to my hair. “Uh, no, uh, no you didn’t.” I swallowed. “I do?”

“And pretty teeth, too.” What the _fuck_. “And pretty hair when it sticks up like that.”

I grabbed my head with both hands. “Sticking up? Oh hell, I bet it’s stupid-”

He giggled. Fucking giggles. “And I _really_ like that red you turn. It’s, like, spotlight red.”

“But… are spotlights red?”

“Spoltight. _Stoplight_.” He tried to stare at his own mouth, cross-eyed. “My tongue feels funny.”

“Okay, Giggles, it’s time to lie down.” I stood up a little and pushed his shoulders down against the bed, taking out one of the pillows and tossing it to the bed next to us.

He grabbed my face with both hands while I was distracted, _owowow fuck did he ever cut his nails?_ “Fire. Fire engine! Cadmium, maybe?” Now he was just spouting nonsense, but those nails hurt like a _fucker_. “I like your head, too.” My mouth flopped open. He jerked me forward to rest his forehead on mine. I had to sit on the edge of his bed to avoid getting scratches on my face. “I like what’s in it, all the grey matter folds and dopamine levels and others-concerns and pretty smiles…” His eyes slipped closed, grip relaxing. I shook him by where I was still holding his shoulders.

“Hey, Marc, don’t do that, wake up.” His eyes popped open, too too _too_ close. He beamed. “You have really pretty eyes, Jean.”

“Yeah, you told me that already.” I reached up and pulled his hands off my face, finger by finger, and leant back to a normal distance. He just turned his hands a bit to latch onto my wrists, though, pulling them into his lap. My breath ran away with me and wouldn’t come back. “Marc?”

“I don’t like when people call me that.” He twisted one of his fingers around my index. “But for you, it’s okay.”

Oy vey. I swallowed. “Can I have my hands back?”

“No.” He pulled them to his chest, jerking me forward again so I was a foot away. “They’re mine now.”

“Uh.” That could be true, I guess, if he wanted them. “Maybe we should talk about this when you’re normal. And I’m sober.”

“I am normal. Two hundred percent normal!” He hugged my forearms – boychik had a freaking Devil’s Snare grip. “Except for the whole spells and wands and magic thing and the broomsticks and there are _mice_ you eat like _candy_ in this world-”

“Marc, you need to slow down, Gully said you’re supposed to be resting.”

“Marc.” He wove our fingers together. “You can call me Marc. _You_ can call me anything you like.”

I felt a bit like my dog chasing her tail. “Maybe I should go, you should rest.” I tried to pull my arms away, but he just held me tighter.

“No! I like me when you’re here. You should never leave.” He turned one of my hands to nuzzle into my palm, face a little scratchy and breath warm on my wrist and my brain straight up flatlined.

“Uuhh-”

A door, and footsteps, thank Jehoshaphat. I glanced over my shoulder at Mr. Gully, who was struggling not to laugh. Schmuck.

“Mr. Bodt, are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah, fuckin’ great, I could dropkick the motherfuckin’ moon right now-”

“ _Marco!_ ” I finally get to hear him curse and it’s _now?_ Mr. Gully just laughed and pried his arms away from mine.

“That’s probably a bad idea, as my Concuctere Concoction will make you fall on your face if you try to stand.” He finally got me loose and I backpedaled from Marco’s octopus grip. Mr. Gully winked at me over the top of Marco’s head. “It’s a handy potion to erase any future effects of the concussion, but the present effects are a little amplified.”

I licked my dry lips. “A little?”

Mr. Gully laughed and fluffed up Marco’s pillows in a mother hen move. Marco was muttering, but now I was too far away to make out words. “Good news for both of you is that people who take it can rarely recall specifics later.”

My brain whirred as I stared at Mr. Gully’s flushing. “Oh. That’s… good.” _Click-click-thunk_. I felt myself flushing again. “Uh, how much of that did you…”

“You two are both rather loud.” He stood straight on the other side of Marco’s bed and crossed his arms. “But I won’t tell a soul. Now, get.”

“Yessir. Uh, bye, Marco.” Marco waved, barely lifting his hand from the bed. I ducked my head and left the hospital wing, trying not to hear Marco’s bubbling remarks at Mr. Gully at the nurse’s low responses.

* * *

The next time I saw Marco was in the kitchens on Sunday night. The other captains had already done their slap-me-on-the-back congratulations and were being sappy and cute with each other on the other side of table. I wasn’t sure whether I was relieved or anxious when Marco finally stumbled through the painting and fell on the bench next to me.

“Here’s my advice for the night. Never lose.” He groaned and slumped forward onto his arms. I patted his shoulder a few times while Scorpius and Rose chuckled, Scorpius resting his chin on Rose’s shoulder.

“Could’ve told you that one, _Dottie_.”

Marco huffed, glaring in the space over his arms. “Not you, too!” Scorpius’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and Rose grinned.

“What can I say? I’m a bad influence.” She brushed the top of Marco’s head with her quill. “How’s the head?”

“Fine, now. Bludgers _hurt_.”

“Sorry. Again.”

He lifted his head to smile at me, soft and normal with none of the crazy edge of Saturday. “No worries, mate, just par for the course.”

“Par for the what?”

He rolled his eyes. “Never you mind.” He rested his temple on the heel of his hand to smile at me better (better meant turning my stomach into a fucking Gordian knot). “Gully told me that you visited me when I was doped up.”

“ _Really?_ ” Scorpius leant in, chin on Rose’s crown, who was equally entertained. Schmucks.

“Uh, yeah. I’d just heard that I put you in there and wanted to– see for myself.” _Lame._ I raised my eyebrow at him. “You were pretty fucked up, though.”

Marco laughed. “Yeah, I don’t remember much, just…” He paused, ears turning red. “Just, uh. Nothing, actually.”

Yeah, right, but since whatever he was really remembering could potentially cause me humiliation as well, I let it slide. I grinned to distract the others from his pause. “You told me I had pretty teeth.”

Rose burst into laughter. Scorpius buried his face in the back of her neck, shoulders shaking. Marco’s flush spread from his ears to his cheeks.

“Oh, God, that’s _brilliant_ ,” Rose wheezed, wiping her eyes. “What else did he tell you?”

“Uh.” He _definitely_ didn’t tell me I had pretty eyes. Twice. “Not much, he was pretty out of it. None of it made any sense.” Rose huffed in disappointment, but Marco let out a tiny sigh that only I noticed. I quirked my mouth at him. “You did tell me I could call you Marc, though.”

He recoiled. “But I _hate_ Marc.”

I shrugged. “I’m just relaying the message, drugged-Marco to normal-Marco.”

“I’d rather be Dottie Bodt than _Marc_.” I shrugged again and picked up my pencil. We dropped the topic and spent the rest of the evening working and listening to Rose try and fail to bully Scorpius into getting a haircut. Every now and then, though, I’d catch Marco jerking his eyes away from me, ears perpetually red.

Maybe one day I’d find out which part of Saturday he remembered.

* * *

Without much by way of warning, it was December, bitter cold and windy with no sign of snow to break it up. We shuffled through the corridors with mufflers on, that’s how bloody freezing it was. Snow didn’t come until the last Wednesday of term, but it was a howling storm that no one felt like going out and building a snowman in.

Our break between morning classes was spent inside, again. Armin and I had a killer essay for Transfiguration that just wasn’t getting done, so we skipped the classroom the Ravenclaws had been shunted into for the past week and escaped to the library.

… Along with half the damned school. Almost every table was taken by groups; Armin and I had to go all the way to the dusty back section on the history of magic _before_ fucking Hogwarts to find two free chairs, although the table did have an occupant.

“All right, mate?” I dropped my stuff down next to Marco while Armin settled in a more dignified manner across from us.

He looked up from his notebook – another Muggle office supply term I’d learnt from him. “Oh, ‘lo, Jean.” He glanced at Armin and grimaced. “Er, Kirschstein.”

Armin snorted loud enough to stir the dust on the table. I coughed. “Uh, Ar knows, about the whole kitchens thing.”

“Oh. Brilliant.” Marco beamed at him. Armin’s gaze was fixed on his hand.

“Is that a _gel pen?_ ” Armin’s eyes went wide like the pen could sing and dance instead of lay down glittery blue ink. Marco laughed.

“Yeah! I got a whole box – want one?”

“Do I!”

Marco pulled out a clear box with several dozens of the pens in rainbow colors. He smiled as he slid it across the table. “Take your pick.”

Armin grinned and pulled out a green one. I frowned and picked up Marco’s, set aside for the moment, and drew and experimental swirl on the inside of my wrist. “We have ink this color in the Wizarding world, y’know.”

Marco winked. “But gel pens are _special_.” He offered the box to me. “Want one?” I huffed, but I slid out a goldish-brown one.

“Hey, Marco, how’re you doing on that Transfig essay? Jean’n I are stumped.”

Marco moaned and closed the box with a _snap_. “Smith is a torture artist, I swear to _God_.”

We spent a few gleeful minutes laying out the damage that Smith had dealt us and didn’t spend any of break working on the actual essay. When the bell rang for the second class of morning, we all groaned and stood, throwing the few things that had managed to drag out back into our bags. We melted into the queue out of the library – Armin and I had Herbology next with the Slytherins, and Marco was going to something in the opposite direction. We split at the library door with a little head-tilt of acknowledgement, but before I could get more than a few paces away, I heard Marco let out a little “oh!” of surprise. I paused and turned, along with everyone else.

Marco had been stopped in the middle of the hallway by a throng of redheads. I could never tell all of the Weasleys apart, but I knew them enough to see no Rose among them. Shite.

“Is there something I can do for you?” Fucking perfect _idiot_.

“Yeah, you can back the hell away from my sister.” That came from the one who’d glared at me in the hospital wing. That must be Hugo, her brother. She’d spent a great deal of kitchens time complaining about his temper. Marco took a step back.

“Your sister? But I never… _ooh_.”

“ _OOH?_ The hell does that mean, Bodt?”

“Rose isn’t fooling around with me, that’s what it means.” The circle of students had started whispering – I’d put two minutes down until Madame Vass the librarian came out of her musty lair to break it up.

“Well, she’s got _someone_ to moon over!” Hugo gestured behind him, nearly hitting one of his relatives in the nose. “She’s crying all the damn time and making rosebushes all over our common room and they _hurt_ -”

Marco was facing away, but I could see the frown on his face as he _hmph_ ed. “I’ll have to talk to him about that.” God, _why_ , Dottie Bodt, _why_.

Hugo and the collected Weasleys stiffened. “Talk to _who?_ ”

“Uh.” He backed away. “No one, why would I know anything about Rose’s love life? Gosh, that’s just silly.”

“ _Loitering!_ ”

Madame Vass’s shrill Hungarian accent sliced through our hearts from the library door. (Damn, not even thirty seconds!) We jumped and scattered, running away like mice from her shrieking about calling the headmaster and detentions and whatever else. I lost Marco and the Weasleys in the confusion, but I knew there could be only one outcome to Rose’s protective little brother finding out that Marco a) was a terrible, awful liar and b) did, in fact, know something about Rose’s love life.

God, Scorpius was _so fucked_.

* * *

Marco fell in the line of duty and lost to the attacks of Hugo and the Weasleys before lunch. I had a lot of words for him that mainly involved him being a spineless yellow-bellied wimp who couldn’t say no to anyone ever, but I kept it to myself for the moment. In fact, everyone was too smart to try and start a fight in the Great Hall with the professors all _right there,_ so instead they just glared at each other. Scorpius and Rose seemed to be the only ones oblivious to the whole affair. Scorpius was eating alone at one end of the Slytherin table, as per normal for him, picking at his food with his back to the majority of the Hall. Rose was off in her own little world, weaving little braids in her hair, which was down today – a strange enough event on its own, as she usually wore her hair back in a bun. No wonder her family was suspicious. I tried to catch one of their eyes to warn them of the impending chaos, but no one seemed to paying me a lick of attention – including the furious other Weasleys. To the untrained eye, I wouldn’t seem like I had anything to do with the affair, I guess.

Lunch ended. My Arithmancy class passed in a haze, the numbers and calculations scrawling themselves across the board while Professor Morgan bounced around her desk and yammered about limits or something. Whatever. I just wrote down everything on the board on autopilot and decided to figure out what it all meant later. The trouble was bound to happen in afternoon break, and I spent most of the class trying to decide if I wanted to try and find the trouble or let the trouble find me. When it involved my fellow captains, the latter tended to happen no matter what I did.

When the bell rang and we all scrambled to pack up, a flash of red caught my eye – a freckled redhead in the front of the class with her face as bright as the rest of her? Must be a Weasley. I jabbed Armin in the side with my elbow.

“Ow!”

“Shush.” I jerked my head at the Weasley girl as I threw on my bag. “We’re following her.”

Armin glanced over “Lucy?” He raised his eyebrows, shoulders shaking with his repressed laughter. “All right, then.”

She was in such a storm already that she didn’t notice us tailing her a few paces back as she beelined downstairs, making for the corridor that ran around the courtyard where we normally took our breaks. The snow had started to slake its fury outside, so a few brave souls were venturing out into the new white carpet. Scorpius was reading on a windowsill outside, legs swinging. All around him, redheads approached like lionesses cornering an inattentive gazelle.

“This is gonna be _fun_.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You’re a sadist, Ar.” We threw on our hats and gloves so we could observe the action in surround sound. The wind kicked at my robes as we pushed open the door, but I’d taken a cue from Marco and worn a jumper and jeans under them today, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

“ _Malfoy_.” Pawn moved, and the game was in motion. Scorpius looked up from his book, eyes registering his audience and glazing over lazy.

“Weasley. Weasl _eys._ ” He leant back against his window, placid expression turning sardonic. “And how can I assist such a fine array of red wines today?”

The redhead we’d followed down – Armin had called her Lucy? I think there was a Lucy Weasley in our year – crossed her arms and planted her feet. “What have you done with Rose?”

“Rose?” He blinked, smirk falling away. “Is she okay? Did… did something happen to her?”

“ _You_ did, you smarmy git!” Hugo stepped forward next to his – cousin? – fists balled at his side and face splotchy. Oy _vey_. “You’ve _corrupted_ her! First Al, and now-”

“ _Hey_. I had nothing to do with Al coming to Slytherin, that was all-”

“Yeah, but you sure didn’t make him feel welcome, did ya?” Bloody hell, how many Weasleys _were_ there in this shite school? This one was the tallest, a seventh year I think – pretty sure he was one of the Chasers on Rose’s team. He might’ve been one of the Potter-Weasleys. “He told me all the stories from first year-”

“Yeah? Did he now?” Ah fuck, now Scorpius was snapping. Armin chuckled under his breath next to me as Scorpius and the seventh year started bringing up old grudges. A crowd had gathered at the windows and open door – no one had ventured out since they’d started their row, so it was just the scattered dozen of us who were already here that were stuck in the crossfire. Scorpius had jumped down from his windowsill perch. Damn.

Marco slipped through the door to our right and stopped next to me, puffing a bit. “I heard – what’d I miss?”

_“-not my fault if the bloke is antisocial-”_

“They accused Scorp of corrupting Rose, like anyone could do _that_ , then starting laying into each other about the middle Potter kid – the one in Slytherin.”

_“-he used to be fine! Now you and your cronies have turned him into-”_

“Oh yeah, that guy.” Marco looked around. “Where is he, anyway?”

I shrugged. “Not my deal.” Hugo and the other boy, much younger than the rest, had joined in the shouting, while the two girls were trying to break it all up. “Should we step in?”

_“-thought that maybe Rose didn’t tell you about us because she knew-”_

“Maybe, it looks like they could use some help.”

“You’ve _done something_ to Rose! How else could she end up with someone like _you?_ ”

“Maybe she just likes my _dick_ , Weasel!”

My jaw dropped. Armin’s hands flew to his mouth. Marco groaned and slumped back against the frozen stone wall. A collective gasp echoed around us as the four boys and two girls went shock-silent.

Hugo punched him in the face. Hell, _I_ wanted to punch the schmuck in the face. God, what a perfect asshole. Scorpius went down, fresh powder flying, and Hugo pounced, no longer making his words as they wrestled on the ground.

“Okay, _now_!”

Marco and I ran in – it took both of us to get Hugo off of Scorpius, whose blood dripped stark on the new snow. Hugo heaved between us, crusted in snowflakes and still not making his words. Armin crouched next to Scorpius with a handkerchief, which he barely acknowledged as Armin mopped up his face. His eyes were boring into Hugo’s instead. I’d never really fallen for the trick of his blue eyes being icy, but _damn_. It was already cold as an icebox out here, but that gaze turned it all down a few extra degrees.

“You could just be a good brother and _ask_ your sister directly instead of going behind her back like this.” Oh, he’d brought out the quiet anger, this was _good_. “I know for a fact that Rosie’d never let you pull a stunt like this if she knew.”

“Rosie? You call her Rosie _you smug sonofa-_ ”

Scorpius stood, Armin hovering at his elbow. He had a good head or more on Hugo. Hugo’s arm flexed under my grip. “I call her Rosie because she _lets_ me call her Rosie. Because, despite what you _may_ think, about me, about my family, about my House, _she likes me_. I would hope she could trust you – trust you all-” his icicle eyes slipped around to the relatives – “to behave like civilised human beings. But, I guess that’s too much.”

“You’re right.” Seventh year Potter stepped up behind me and Hugo. I jumped away, letting go of Weasley’s arm. “We should be behaving like civilised people, and settling our differences somewhere besides the playground.” He grinned, and none of it was nice. “Like the pitch?”

A grudge Quidditch match? Last time that’d happened, I’d put Marco in the hospital wing, and this one was _personal_. Everyone and their limbs would be broken before the Snitch showed its golden arse. Scorpius crossed his arms and scoffed.

“Too thick for just a nice chat, then, are you, Potter?” I clenched my teeth and dragged my nails down my face. “Fine. My team against yours. Tonight.”

“Deal.” Seventh year Potter looked around and saw me standing there _fuck_. “You’re pretty impartial, right? You can ref.”

“What?”

“Good. It’s settled.” Potter grabbed Hugo by the shoulders and steered him away, glaring as they left with the rest of the Weasleys. “Smell ya later, _Malfoy_.” Scorpius didn’t respond, just watched them all go with frozen slivers for eyes.

“I can’t believe not one professor showed up for that,” Armin muttered from my side – when did he _get_ there? Whatever.

“I dunno, maybe it’s magic.” I waggled my fingers. He rolled his eyes.

“I’ll take care of Scorpius. You get the hell out of here before people start asking you things.”

“Right. Yeah.” I glanced at Scorpius, who hadn’t moved a hair, still glaring at where the Weasleys’ backs had vanished. “Good luck, mate.”

I backed out of the north entrance. Marco was waiting for me, leaning casually against the wall just inside. He was frowning, and I didn’t blame him one bit.

“This is gonna be a Gods-blessed _disaster_.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Maybe this’ll teach that pig-headed snake he can’t say whatever he wants without consequences.” Oh, Marco was just as pissed as I was about the dick comment. He pushed off the wall with his shoulder. “I should warn Mr. Gully for a full ward tonight.”

“And _I_ should go see if I can find a suit of armour that fits me. God, I’m _refereeing_ this mess? Why?” Marco sighed and clapped me on the shoulder.

“Every blessing to you, mate.”

* * *

The game was set at sundown by the miracle of the gossip network. I got a few prayer circles forming around me in the corridor and during dinner that I had to yell and slap at to break up, but I appreciated their sentiment more and more as the sun sank behind the clouds. The Weasleys were irate, a bioluminescent cloud of orange at the far end of the Gryffindor table at dinner, and the Slytherin team, having learnt about the slights against their captain and their House, were just as pissed. Great. Fucking great.

I didn’t have much of a stomach and went up early to bathe and dress. I could at least look good when I died tonight.

My early leave meant an early start, and I was the first one out the main doors into the now still winter’s evening, broomstick in hand and thickest jumper on. The snow had stopped, thank every god, and the wind was nonexistent. I was slipping down the stairs when I saw a red top bobbing towards me from the forest.

“Hey! Little Sister! Where ya headed?” Rose grinned at me as she stomped through the snow. “I thought practices were all over?”

I sucked in a breath, my eyes blown wide. “Oh my God, _you don’t know_.”

She cocked her head. “Know what?”

I just stared at her for a good ten seconds. “Have you been living under a _rock_ today?”

She frowned and put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been outside all afternoon, in Herbology and then Care of Magical Creatures, and decided to stay and have dinner with Hagrid instead of coming up to my knucklehead family in the Tower-” I jerked at ‘knucklehead family’. She frowned harder. “Spit it out, Jean!”

“Oh. My God.” I glanced her cloths over – she’d be fine out a little longer. It’d probably be best if she didn’t go back in the castle. “You better come with me to the pitch, then, and I’ll explain on the way down.”

We burnt a path through the snow with our wands as I stumbled over the events of today, from the library confrontation with Marco to the courtyard fight to the match challenge to the dinner atmosphere. I could hear Rose’s teeth grinding the whole time, and when I told her Scorpius’s last straw comment (which I felt she deserved to know), she screamed and threw herself face-down in the snow.

“I’m going to _kill him!_ ”

“Well, you better hurry, because I think one of your boychiks’ll do it first if you’re not careful.”

“I’ll kill them _all_!” She rolled over in the snow, her front now speckled white. I didn’t mention the streaks down her cheeks as I offered a hand to help her back to her feet. “What was this all over? _My honor?_ Fuckin’ piece of dogshit – I’m gonna put my brother’s head in the _blender_ when we get home this Christmas-”

“Blender?”

She sighed, a forceful exhale. “Forget it.” We were almost to the pitch now. I looked back to see a few heads bobbing down the path we’d burnt.

“Hey, let’s go hide you in my captain’s office, yeah? Calm down before you murder them?”

“Yeah, all right.” We ducked into the Ravenclaw locker room, and the novelty of blue instead of red paint on the walls caught her off guard enough to smooth out the crease between her eyebrows a little. I sat her down in my terrible chair, and she had the respect not to look at my practice plans pinned to the walls. I got her a glass of water from the wall dispenser and leant against the rickety desk, just taking in the five minutes of quiet with her before I had to go deal with that hurricane of hell out there.

“Why can’t I just have a normal relationship?”

Her sudden question startled me enough that I didn’t think before I answered. “Because you’d be bored.” She smiled. I rubbed my arms and checked my watch. “Well, they’re probably gonna throttle each other if I don’t babysit them now. You stay here as long as you need.”

“Thanks, Jean. I really do appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well, don’t thank me until the game’s over and no one’s dead.” She giggled and sipped more at her water. I gave her head a one-armed squeeze and grabbed my broom before heading out onto the pitch. What a nightmare.


	5. Chanukah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {A/N: Sorry about the unintended break. I had to graduate from college. This chapter's a little over my usual word count, but that's because it's mostly texting, because I can work a text section into any fic. (If you end up liking this, my other SnK fic is a textfic you should read) The French help was provided by [koosei](http://koosei.tumblr.com) and google translate, so it might be a bit rocky. [tumblr](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com) [writing playlist](http://8tracks.com/carriecmoney/choosing-sides-and-crooked-lines)}

Well. No one died.

But not for lack of trying. The match only lasted half an hour, but that half hour managed to contain brutal Bludgers camouflaged in the night dark, seventh year Potter body slamming Scorpius for no reason (other than the ‘sleeping with his cousin’ part), and at least a dozen penalties on either side. I was glad I’d remembered my practice whistle, because without that, everything would have really gone to shite and just devolved into a fistfight midair.

There hadn’t been a glint of the Snitch when the cavalry arrived in the form of the headmaster and the Gryffindor and Slytherin Heads of House. Pixis docked fifty points from their houses on the spot, moustache bristling, before hauling Scorpius, seventh year Potter (as the oldest member of the sans-Rose Gryffindors) and me (“You too, Kirschstein, you’re not supposed to be here anyway”) off to his office. He yelled at us some more about danger and irresponsibility and why at night and aren’t you supposed to be setting the example for the kids? Blah, blah, blah, detention when you get back from holiday, blah, blah. Honestly, I thought he’d let us off easy, because that was about the dumbest thing I’d ever done. And I’ve done some _dumb_ shite.

After he dismissed us with all the briskness one would expect of a headmaster trained in the Muggle military, I didn’t get to stop moving until I collapsed on the train heading home. The last day of term was normally chaotic, but combined with the drama of the night before, I was ready to get the fuck out of that school and go home and not deal with that shite for another three weeks.

Armin had his Prefect-ly things to deal with, so I settled into a compartment with just our stuff and Armin’s screech owl Lilith, who was blessedly asleep in her cage with my Quidditch jersey-cape thrown over it. I closed the stupid curtains and curled up to take a nap, because after the last few days, I was _exhausted_.

I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep when there was a knock at my window, followed by the door sliding open. I rubbed at my eyes and looked up, expecting Armin back from his whatever stuff, but jumped when it was Marco, hair in his eyes a little and smiling.

“Hey there, sleepyhead.” He stepped in and closed the door behind him, leaning on it. “If I knew you were sleeping, I wouldn’t’ve woken you.”

“Well. You did.” I groaned and stretched, sitting up and sprawling out. “All right, Marc?”

His nose wrinkled. “Marc is the _worst_. Stop that.”

“Sorry, s’easier.” I yawned and slid over to give him space on the bench. “Wanna sit?”

He shook his head. “I’m doing my patrols, I just stopped in to say hi.” He grinned. “Armin said you’d be in the compartment with the curtains drawn and lights off.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been a shitty week.”  I dug the heel of my hand into my eye socket, feeling grimy and ugly and useless. “You here for a _reason_ , Bodt?”

“Snippy today.” He smiled at me, lip in his teeth, unfazed by my snarling. “What’re you doing over Christmas?”

“Chanukah at my dad’s, then New Year’s at m’mum’s vineyard down in France.” I ran a hand through my hair, pushing it away from my eyes. _Fuck_ , I needed a haircut. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Just curious. You’re my friend, after all.” I blinked at him. He did that weird not-quite-laugh smile of his, and my heart jumped into my throat. “I’ll be around my parents’ store, mostly, but we’ll probably go to Brighton for Christmas. My grandfather’s there.”

“Huh.” We’d covered the topic of his parents’ art store a few times over the semester, which answered the question of how he had an endless amount of Muggle office supplies. “Well, have fun.”

“I’ll try.” The voices out in the corridor grew louder, and he sighed, chin falling to his chest. “I hate kids.” I laughed, running a hand over my face. He nudged my outstretched calf with his foot. “Find me on the platform after we get off the train? I’ve got something for you.”

“Yeah, all right.” What on earth could he have to give me then? But he just winked at me and slipped out of the compartment, leaving me confused, flustered, and very, very awake. _Fuck_ Marco.

I spent the rest of the train ride staring out the window at the blurred countryside and dozing off. Armin came back at some point, a little tousled, and I listened to him complain about twelve year olds right on up to the London suburbs, where we broke to get out of the stupid school uniform robes into decent cloths, like trousers.

The train lurched to a stop, and we scrambled to get all of our shite off the train ahead of everyone else. Family members clogged the platform, but Angie knew what to do and was wearing a bright purple jumper that clashed nicely with her red-streaked blonde hair. She waved, chomping on gum, and I raised a hand in return. Armin poked me in the side and made me promise to write him at _least_ twice before running off to his grandfather.

I hauled my trunk over to where she was standing with a trolley waiting. “Hey, Sister Christian.”

She snorted loud enough that I heard it over the din of the platform. “Meet Rosie, then?”

“Yeah… I’ve got some shite to tell you about that later, you’ll love it.” She raised her pierced eyebrow and popped her gum.

“I can’t wait. We should head out, Dad’s stuck in the lot.” I looked over my shoulder – no Marco. “Got a twitch?”

“Shut up.” I squinted into the crowd. “Someone wanted me to meet him here before I left-”

“Jean!” I whipped to the left to see Marco running up, in a nice blue jumper that showed off his shoulders _fucking hell_ , smiling and clutching a box and an envelope?

“Hey.” He came to a stop a few steps away from me, still smiling. “Uh, this is my sister, Angelina. Angie, this is Marco Bodt.” He turned that smile on her. She jerked her chin up, then narrowed her eyes.

“Bodt… Hufflepuff, right?” He nodded. “Chaser?” He nodded again.

“Yeah, I’m captain this year.”

She frowned. “I just remembered. I hate you.” The smile fell from Marco’s face. I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t take her seriously, she was just the Keeper and she holds grudges.” He gave a little ‘ah’ of acknowledgement and stopped it with the kicked-puppy look, thank God. “Angie, _be nice_.”

“Yeah, whatever.” She squinted at Marco. “I got my eye on you, Bodt.”

“Oh, uh, okay.” I chuckled and shook my hair in front of my eyes. “Well, I have to run, my parents don’t want to pay for parking, but, here.” He handed me the envelope and the box. “It’s called a mobile. It’s a thing we Muggles use to talk to each other without bird crap getting all over our floors. It’s faster, too.”

I took the box, eyes widening. “I don’t even really know what this is and I already love it.”

He laughed. “The box has all the stuff you’ll need. I’ve written out instructions on how to use it, but if you have any more questions – hang on, give me that again.” I handed over the envelope, and he pulled a pencil from his pocket and scrawled something on the back of it. “Here’s my address. Talk to me, yeah?” He grinned and handed it back, our fingers brushing as the envelope was exchanged. I swallowed, mouth dry.

“Sure. I will.”

“Great!” He backed away, flicking one of Scorpius’s slightly-ironic salutes at Angie. “Nice to see you again, Sister Christian. Bye, Jean.” He turned and melted back into the crowd. I stood there, numb, box in one hand and envelope in the other, staring at the spot where he’d disappeared.

Angie broke my trance with a loud pop of her gum. “S’that the kid that took over after Green got out?”

I stuffed the box and envelope into my shoulder bag, face hot. “Yeah. He is.”

“You got your work cut out for you, little K.” She shot me a sharp hazel look. “You can tell me about it later. Let’s go find Dad before he starts asking for directions.”

“Good idea.” We ducked out of the hidden platform into the Muggle ones, and even though I had no reason to think so, I had a feeling it was going to be a good holiday.

* * *

From: [Unknown Number]  
Hey this is jean.  
Sat, 17 Dec, 9:31 pm

From: Marco  
Hey! You figured that out faster than I expected :)  
Sat, 17 Dec, 9:42 pm

From: Jean  
Angie helped. Shes not totally useless. Whats that thing at the end.  
Sat, 17 Dec, 9:47 pm

From: Marco  
Haha it’s a smiley face. Because I’m smiling  
Sat, 17 Dec, 9:51 pm

From: Jean  
How do you make them.  
Sat, 17 Dec, 9:54 pm

From: Marco  
There should be a colon button and a parenthesis button. Have you slid the phone open?  
Sat, 17 Dec, 9:57 pm

From: Jean  
This is so much better than an owl!  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:01 pm

From: Marco  
I know right? If Hogwarts didn’t murder electronics I’d have taught you about mobiles a long time ago  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:04 pm

From: Jean  
Yeah but power. Do you know how hard it is to find an outlet in a wizard house?  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:07 pm

From: Marco  
Oh dear I didn’t even think of that. But you found one?  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:09 pm

From: Jean  
Angie showed me our corner cafe after dinner. I am in love.  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:12 pm

From: Marco  
Good. Remember to charge it everyday or it’ll die!  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:14 pm

From: Jean  
Die? Are these things alive?  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:17 pm

From: Marco  
Hahahaha omg no, j, no. It’ll just stop working until you plug it in again.  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:20 pm

From: Jean  
Oh okay good. Omg?  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:23 pm

From: Marco  
Bless you. Omg = oh my god  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:24 pm

From: Jean  
That makes sense.  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:27 pm

From: Marco  
:) I’ll let you know what any future acronyms mean. Atm/at this moment I need to sleep, it’s been a long day. Ttyl/talk to you tomorrow?  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:30 pm

From: Jean  
Yeah sounds good. Ttyl.  
Sat, 17 Dec, 10:32 pm

* * *

From: Marco  
Good morning!  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:38 am

From: JK  
Uuuuuuuuuuuugh kill me.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:52 am

From: Marco  
Someone’s cranky in the morning  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:05 am

From: JK  
Sis woke me up at 6 this morning with her trumpet and i havent recovered.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:09 am

From: Marco  
Ouch. That sucks, I’m sorry  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:15 am

From: JK  
Yeah shes a bitch. And she doesnt really hate you, she just doesn’t like anyone who scores on her  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:21 am

From: Marco  
That’s fair. What’re you doing today?  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:23 am

From: JK  
Getting dinner ready. Its chanukahs first night, and the family always comes over to us because we have the biggest house.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:30 am

From: Marco  
Sounds fun! I’m opening the store for mum & dad so they can have a lazy sunday  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:33 am

From: JK  
Youre too nice kid.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:38 am

From: Marco  
I know :) But I missed the store, so I don’t mind :)  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:45 am

From: JK  
Is that why you run one out of your bookbag?  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:50 am

From: Marco  
Hahaha a bit, but also b/c (because) it hurts me to see small children trying to use quills  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:58 am

From: Marco  
Those things are terrible and the wizarding world should be ashamed  
Sun, 18 Dec, 10:01 am

From: JK  
Hear hear. This mobile thing is so much better than a dumb owl.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 10:10 am

From: Marco  
Isn’t it though? I don’t understand the aversion to muggle tech at ALL  
Sun, 18 Dec, 10:15 am

From: JK  
Yeah its pretty dumb. But it is nice to have a self stirring bowl.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 10:22 am

From: Marco  
We have those. They’re called blenders  
Sun, 18 Dec, 10:25 am

From: JK  
Rose said she was gonna stick her bros head in a blender.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 10:30 am

From: Marco  
Hahahaha omg she would. I wouldn’t blame her  
Sun, 18 Dec, 10:36 am

From: JK  
How do you get this thing to shut up with the beeping.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 10:45 am

From: Marco  
There should be two little buttons on the side of the phone to control the volume. I keep mine on vibrate  
Sun, 18 Dec, 10:52 am

From: JK  
My dad was gonna kill me if it kept beeping like that. Thanks.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 10:57 am

From: Marco  
Haha no prob. You’re doing better w/ (with) the mobile than I thought you would, for a wizard  
Sun, 18 Dec, 11:05 am

From: JK  
Well, angie was always more muggle than most, and knew a bit about keyboards.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 11:11 am

From: Marco  
:) your sis seems cool  
Sun, 18 Dec, 11:16 am

From: JK  
Shed be cool if she didnt wake me up with a trumpet at 6 in the morning.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 11:25 am

From: Marco  
Bahahahahaha  
Sun, 18 Dec, 11:27 am

From: Marco  
It’s sooooooooooooooo slooooooowwwwwwwwww heeeeeeeeerrrrrrreeeee  
Sun, 18 Dec, 11:53 am

From: JK  
Come over and ill teach you how to make latkes  
Sun, 18 Dec, 11:59 am

From: Marco  
What’re latkes?  
Sun, 18 Dec, 12:02 pm

From: JK  
Omg. Only the most blessed food of the gods there is. Especially from scratch.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 12:10 pm

From: JK  
Theyre potato pancakes but theyre so much more than that.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 12:14 pm

From: Marco  
Hahaha well I’ll have to try them sometime if you like them so much :)  
Sun, 18 Dec, 12:16 pm

From: JK  
Yeah you will. I wonder if the house elves know how to make them.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 12:22 pm

From: Marco  
Those h-e know about everything w/ food I think  
Sun, 18 Dec, 12:30 pm

From: JK  
Haha probably true. I should probably pay attention to how dad does it in case i have to teach them though.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 12:39 pm

From: Marco  
Good luck! People are starting to show up and buy thing, finally  
Sun, 18 Dec, 12:51 pm

From: JK  
Excellent. Relatives are coming. I can smell them on the breeze.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 1:05 pm

From: Marco  
Stay strong my friend. This too shall pass  
Sun, 18 Dec, 1:11 pm

From: JK  
Thing about jewish families is that theyre nosy as fuck and always ask me if i found a nice magic jewish girl yet, if im gonna be a healer like dad, blah blah.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 1:19 pm

From: Marco  
Aww poor baby. Do you wanna be a Healer?  
Sun, 18 Dec, 1:26 pm

From: JK  
Not sure? Helping people is nice, and I can deal w/ gross, but I dont exactly have a good bedside manner.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 1:33 pm

From: JK  
But then neither does dad.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 1:36 pm

From: Marco  
Hahaha, yeah I can see that. I always wanted to be a cop since I was like 3. Itd be fun to be a muggle cop w/ a wand  
Sun, 18 Dec, 1:46 pm

From: JK  
I think they call that cheating.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 1:55 pm

From: Marco  
It’s not cheating if they don’t know about it ;)  
Sun, 18 Dec, 1:57 pm

From: Marco  
(That’s a wink)  
Sun, 18 Dec, 1:59 pm

From: JK  
I figured. You wink a lot.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 2:03 pm

From: Marco  
Do I? I never thought about it  
Sun, 18 Dec, 2:06 pm

From: JK  
Dude you wink all the time.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 2:11 pm

From: Marco  
Heh. Well it happens  
Sun, 18 Dec, 2:28 pm

From: JK  
The family has arrived. Kill me now.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 4:24 pm

From: Marco  
I believe in you  
Sun, 18 Dec, 4:31 pm

From: JK  
Completely tempted to make up a fake girlfriend.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 6:51 pm

From: Marco  
That bad?  
Sun, 18 Dec, 7:12 pm

From: JK  
Im 15, its not even legal for me to marry yet  
Sun, 18 Dec, 7:16 pm

From: Marco  
Come on, it really can’t be THAT bad  
Sun, 18 Dec, 7:22 pm

From: JK  
Yeah ok angies getting it worse since shes out of hogwarts and in the world, so wheres her jewish healer?  
Sun, 18 Dec, 7:27 pm

From: Marco  
Oh dear  
Sun, 18 Dec, 7:28 pm

From: JK  
And angie is angie, so shes getting all snippy about it  
Sun, 18 Dec, 7:35 pm

From: Marco  
A family trait  
Sun, 18 Dec, 7:40 pm

From: JK  
Yeah we look like mere and act like dad. How do you do accents on this thing.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 7:50 pm

From: Marco  
Too complicated, don’t worry about it. Yeah I never thought you two looked particularly jewish  
Sun, 18 Dec, 7:55 pm

From: JK  
We didnt get dads nose if thats what you mean.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:01 pm

From: Marco  
Well, that, and the coloring, and the Jean not John thing  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:10 pm

From: Marco  
Rather off-putting  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:12 pm

From: Marco  
Do you ever get mad if people call you John?  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:15 pm

From: JK  
Eh. Brits dont really say it different anyhow, so i can only tell when its written. Im used to it.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:22 pm

From: Marco  
Hahah like being called Christian?  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:25 pm

From: JK  
The plague of this family.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:28 pm

From: JK  
No one in the previous generations really gets it. Angie and the cousins do.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:33 pm

From: Marco  
Hahaha yeah. I have no idea where my last name is from tbh (to be honest)  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:36 pm

From: Marco  
It’s just sort of weird and there and I’ve never googled it  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:39 pm

From: JK  
Googled??  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:43 pm

From: Marco  
………….nevermind. It’s a searching thing. Like if you could type in a word and have the library give you all the relevant books  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:51 pm

From: JK  
OMG.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 8:55 pm

From: Marco  
Hahaha yeah its pretty sweet. I just did it and Bodt comes from Belgium?? News to me  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:02 pm

From: JK  
Omg do me.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:05 pm

From: Marco  
If you insist ;)  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:08 pm

From: JK  
DOTTIE BODY  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:12 pm

From: JK  
I DIDNT MEAN THAT SHITE UH  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:15 pm

From: JK  
Im just. Im going to bed now.  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:18 pm

From: Marco  
BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAA I’m gonna cry, j you’re perfect don’t ever change  
Sun, 18 Dec, 9:23 pm

* * *

From: Marco  
Happy Christmas!!!!!!!! :)  
Sun, 25 Dec, 9:01 am

From: Cherry Stone  
Really body. Really.  
Sun, 25 Dec, 10:38 am

From: Cherry Stone  
After all ive put you through the last few days about chanukah  
Sun, 25 Dec, 10:42 am

From: Cherry Stone  
You pull out christmas  
Sun, 25 Dec, 10:46 am

From: Marco  
I’m sorry!!!!! Its a mass text thing, I sent it to all my friends, don’t be upset D:  
Sun, 25 Dec, 11:07 am

From: Cherry Stone  
Im not mad just disappointed  
Sun, 25 Dec, 11:22 am

From: Cherry Stone  
But happy xmas i guess  
Sun, 25 Dec, 11:31 am

From: Cherry Stone  
Rake in the stuff today?  
Sun, 25 Dec, 11:43 am

From: Marco  
Not really, just a few odds & ends. I don’t mind tho  
Sun, 25 Dec, 11:57 am

From: Marco  
Still can’t believe you don’t have a present holiday  
Sun, 25 Dec, 12:09 pm

From: Cherry Stone  
W/e. Chanukah’s not really a big deal, esp when the whole lamp oil thing can be explained w/ magic  
Sun, 25 Dec, 12:17 pm

From: Marco  
Hhahahahaa yeah I can see that  
Sun, 25 Dec, 12:25 pm

From: Cherry Stone  
It just has good timing  
Sun, 25 Dec, 12:27 pm

From: Cherry Stone  
So many jewish holidays are about suffering which is why purim is the best  
Sun, 25 Dec, 12:36 pm

From: Marco  
Purim?  
Sun, 25 Dec, 12:47 pm

From: Cherry Stone  
Literally get so drunk you mix up names. While wearing a costume.  
Sun, 25 Dec, 12:52 pm

From: Marco  
Omg wonderful. When is it?  
Sun, 25 Dec, 12:56 pm

From: Cherry Stone  
Feb/mar. Jewish dates are funky  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:11 pm

From: Marco  
There’s that whole other calendar thing right?  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:15 pm

From: Cherry Stone  
Yeah, days are different so they shift around on the norm calendar  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:21 pm

From: Marco  
Ah, get ya. About to go see a movie w/parents so I’ll be off phone for a few hours  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:28 pm

From: Cherry Stone  
Movie?  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:31 pm

From: Marco  
I am going to punch the wiz. World in the face. Movies are like books acted out, recorded, and played back  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:36 pm

From: Marco  
Like wiz. Pics but they don’t interact w/you and they last longer  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:39 pm

From: Cherry Stone  
Awesome. I asked angie and she said shed take me to one when we go to mere’s  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:43 pm

From: Marco  
You have a good sis. I’ll take you to one sometime too. But I’d buy you dinner first ;)  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:48 pm

From: Cherry Stone  
Free food is great when can we start  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:52 pm

From: Marco  
Hehehe we can start whenever you want :))  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:56 pm

From: Cherry Stone  
Hell yeah. Why is angie laughing at me  
Sun, 25 Dec, 1:59 pm

From: Marco  
Can’t talk movie’s starting ttyl  
Sun, 25 Dec, 2:02 pm

From: Cherry Stone  
Uh okay  
Sun, 25 Dec, 12:09 pm

* * *

From: Not John  
My arms are gonna be so buff when i get back to hogwarts after all these wine barrels  
Sat, 31 Dec, 4:04 pm

From: Not Marc  
Hahaa having fun at mama’s vineyard?  
Sat, 31 Dec, 4:31 pm

From: Not John  
Ouioui bien sur  
Sat, 31 Dec, 4:36 pm

From: Not John  
Whoops sorry mere’s making us do french while were here and its hard to switch back and forth in my head  
Sat, 31 Dec, 4:41 pm

From: Not Marc  
Hahaha nbd, it’s cool  
Sat, 31 Dec, 4:45 pm

From: Not John  
Shes having a party at the chateau tonight and we have to decorate and shite  
Sat, 31 Dec, 4:52 pm

From: Not John  
Ofc my job is wine prep  
Sat, 31 Dec, 4:56 pm

From: Not John  
But hey, i get champagne later so theres that  
Sat, 31 Dec, 4:59 pm

From: Not Marc  
A fair trade. Wiz. Or muggle party?  
Sat, 31 Dec, 5:05 pm

From: Not John  
Wiz. But she has strict magic rules around the wine in case it ‘upsets the fermentation’ or some shite  
Sat, 31 Dec, 5:13 pm

From: Not John  
So i get to haul them up the steps by hand  
Sat, 31 Dec, 5:15 pm

From: Not Marc  
Poor dear  
Sat, 31 Dec, 5:18 pm

From: Not John  
It just means ill kick your arse extra hard when we get back ;)  
Sat, 31 Dec, 5:22 pm

From: Not Marc  
But we don’t play each other again this season?  
Sat, 31 Dec, 5:30 pm

From: Not John  
Well we’ll just have to ‘schedule’ another practice game  
Sat, 31 Dec, 5:36 pm

From: Not Marc  
Hahaha you’re on kirschstein  
Sat, 31 Dec, 5:39 pm

From: Not Marc  
So which is better, pruning or barrel-carting  
Sat, 31 Dec, 5:49 pm

From: Not John  
Oh barrels most def. At least my fingers are only chilled instead of freezing  
Sat, 31 Dec, 6:01 pm

From: Not John  
Angie got the magic decorating job, lucky chit  
Sat, 31 Dec, 6:22 pm

From: Not John  
What’re your NYE plans?  
Sat, 31 Dec, 6:27 pm

From: Not Marc  
Mum & dad are going out to a thing somewhere, so the kids in my neighborhood are coming over to my house  
Sat, 31 Dec, 6:35 pm

From: Not John  
A no parents party? Marco you dog  
Sat, 31 Dec, 6:41 pm

From: Not Marc  
:) I can be sneaky when I want  
Sat, 31 Dec, 6:43 pm

From: Not Marc  
Besides we do this every year, its basically the only time they like me  
Sat, 31 Dec, 6:46 pm

From: Not John  
Literally do not understand how anyone could not like you  
Sat, 31 Dec, 6:49 pm

From: Not Marc  
Haha I spend most of the year at an exclusive boarding school that none of them can get into  
Sat, 31 Dec, 6:53 pm

From: Not Marc  
Also I kind of made the neighbor’s rabbit disappear as a kid  
Sat, 31 Dec, 6:55 pm

From: Not John  
Omg you didnt  
Sat, 31 Dec, 6:59 pm

From: Not Marc  
Yeah, mum’s got a full dinner service’s worth of stories about my kid magic  
Sat, 31 Dec, 7:03 pm

From: Not Marc  
Lets just say my H letter didn’t shock them at all  
Sat, 31 Dec, 7:04 pm

From: Not John  
Hahaha thats so great i love it  
Sat, 31 Dec, 7:10 pm

From: Not John  
The worst part of this party isnt the barrel lifting its having to wear a damned tux  
Sat, 31 Dec, 7:33 pm

From: Not Marc  
But I bet you look good in it ;)  
Sat, 31 Dec, 7:37 pm

From: Not Marc  
Wait but wiz. Party but muggle formalwear?  
Sat, 31 Dec, 7:39 pm

From: Not John  
Mere gave us a choice between wiz. Or mug. At least a tux has trousers  
Sat, 31 Dec, 7:44 pm

From: Not Marc  
Trousers are so great  
Sat, 31 Dec, 7:51 pm

From: Not John  
They really are. Whats the wiz. Worlds problem  
Sat, 31 Dec, 7:55 pm

From: Not Marc  
Told you it needs a good punch in the face  
Sat, 31 Dec, 7:58 pm

From: Not John  
People are coming soon. How long you gonna be around?  
Sat, 31 Dec, 8:40 pm

From: Not Marc  
Mum & dad don’t leave for like an hour  
Sat, 31 Dec, 8:43 pm

From: Not John  
Mk well when I get a break from francais ill bother you :)  
Sat, 31 Dec, 8:45 pm

From: Not Marc  
Hahah deal  
Sat, 31 Dec, 8:46 pm

From: Not John  
Mere rend tres bon champagne  
Sat, 31 Dec, 10:37 pm

From: Not Marc  
Jean are you ok  
Sat, 31 Dec, 10:46 pm

From: Not John  
Mmm juste en mode francais. Trop de francais  
Sat, 31 Dec, 10:50 pm

From: Not Marc  
Jeaaan english please I’m too drunk for french  
Sat, 31 Dec, 10:57 pm

From: Not John  
Et je suis trop soul pour anglais  
Sat, 31 Dec, 10:59 pm

From: Not Marc  
Jeeeaaaannnnnn you’re not helpingggggg  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:01 pm

From: Not John  
Jai pas de soins. Apprends francais ou sortir ici  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:05 pm

From: Not John  
Merde. Cest vraiment bon champagne  
Sat, 31 Dec,11:08 pm

From: Not John  
Et le putain vignoble cest beau la nuit. Comme ta face.  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:13 pm

From: Not John  
Je nai jamais ditevous combien jaime ton face? Parceque jaime beaucoup ta face.  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:18 pm

From: Not Marc  
Jean. How drunk are you  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:21 pm

From: Not John  
Assez soul a dire muette couillonnade comme je veux date te taches de rousseurs stupides et caresser tes cheveaux stupidement parfaits.  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:26 pm

From: Not John  
Je date le baise de ton stupide visage et ton stupide nez et ton stupidement belles dents.  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:30 pm

From: Not Marc  
I finally get you to talk in french and its over text and I dont get to hear it LAME  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:33 pm

From: Not John  
Je te dire en francais tout ce que tu veux quand je te vois la prochaine fois.  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:37 pm

From: Not John  
Parle tout salement et la merde comme ca.  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:39 pm

From: Not Marc  
I duno if what youre saying is funny but I cant stop laughing  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:41 pm

From: Not John  
Avoir un rondezvous avec toi nest pas drole! Cest un reve putain, comme un but de la vie.  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:44 pm

From: Not John  
J’ai eu un gros beguin de toi depuis que jai eu douze ans.  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:46 pm

From: Not John  
Comme russe-taille  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:47 pm

From: Not Marc  
Hahaha I love you so much jean  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:52 pm

From: Not John  
Cest ce que je suis cense dire!  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:53 pm

From: Not Marc  
Youre the best bloke ever did you know that  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:55 pm

From: Not John  
Euh quoi no arrete ca  
Sat, 31 Dec, 11:57 pm

From: Not Marc  
HEY! Midnight. Kiss me :*  
Sun, 1 Jan, 12:04 pm

From: Not John  
Oui sil te plait  
Sun, 1 Jan, 12:06 pm

From: Not Marc  
Hhhhahahahahaa youre adorable. Im gonna smush your perfect face later  
Sun, 1 Jan, 12:15 pm

From: Not John  
Feu dartifice putain ma terrife comme merde  
Sun, 1 Jan, 12:22 pm

From: Not Marc  
Yeah me too! :DD  
Sun, 1 Jan, 12:24 pm

From: Not John  
Marc ce na pas de sens  
Sun, 1 Jan, 12:31 pm

From: Not Marc  
You just called me marc but thats ok  
Sun, 1 Jan, 12:33 pm

From: Not Marc  
You can say it all frenchy next time yah? French is sexxyxyy  
Sun, 1 Jan, 12:36 pm

From: Not Marc  
Jeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnn come baaaaaaaaack. I looooooooooovvvee youuuuuu  
Sun, 1 Jan, 12:59 pm

* * *

From: Not Marc  
Fun fact: that Internet thing I keep talking about has a translator in it. And mobiles record their text history.  
Sun, 1 Jan, 12:37 pm

From: Jean Bean  
Oy vey  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:02 pm

From: Not Marc  
Are you STILL drunk jean  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:05 pm

From: Jean Bean  
No? Unless you want me to be  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:09 pm

From: Not Marc  
Drunk jean is french jean, so, maybe later  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:11 pm

From: Jean Bean  
What parts of last night have you translated  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:17 pm

From: Not Marc  
All of it  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:19 pm

From: Jean Bean  
Merde. Im sorry mate  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:26 pm

From: Not Marc  
The heck you apologising for, I’m the one who took a full day to realise you asked me out  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:29 pm

From: Jean Bean  
Which only happened b/c champagne is delicious  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:32 pm

From: Not Marc  
Stop backtracking I’m saying yes  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:34 pm

From: Jean Bean  
Wait what  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:35 pm

From: Not Marc  
Yes. I’d like to date you.  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:37 pm

From: Jean Bean  
WAIT WHAT  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:39 pm

From: Not Marc  
:) :) :) :)  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:41 pm

From: Jean Bean  
Dude thats wicked  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:43 pm

From: Jean Bean  
Im gonna date the shite out of you  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:45 pm

From: Not Marc  
Hahaha and “caresser tes cheveaux stupidement parfaits”?  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:48 pm

From: Jean Bean  
Shite I totally said that didnt i  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:54 pm

From: Not Marc  
Hahahahah you sure did :)  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:57 pm

From: Not Marc  
But that’s okay I like being called perfect  
Sun, 1 Jan, 1:59 pm

From: Jean Bean  
Good. Because you are.  
Sun, 1 Jan, 2:08 pm

From: Not Marc  
Stoppp ittt  
Sun, 1 Jan, 2:11 pm

From: Jean Bean  
No you stop it  
Sun, 1 Jan, 2:13 pm

From: Not Marc  
I’m not enabling this :P  
Sun, 1 Jan, 2:14 pm

From: Not Marc  
But yesyes we can do the date  
Sun, 1 Jan, 2:16 pm

From: Not Marc  
Can I call you boyfriend?  
Sun, 1 Jan, 2:28 pm

From: Jean Bean  
Not until we snog at least three times  
Sun, 1 Jan, 2:30 pm

From: Not Marc  
That is a beautiful plan and I look forward to implementing it  
Sun, 1 Jan, 2:32 pm

From: Jean Bean  
YES. I have to go prune bc mere doesnt like that I hid from the party at midnight but. YES  
Sun, 1 Jan, 2:45 pm

From: Not Marc  
Have fun pruning. Not-yet-bf (boyfriend) :)  
Sun, 1 Jan, 2:47 pm

From: Jean Bean  
:) :) :) :) :)  
Sun, 1 Jan, 2:48 pm

* * *

Marco-

So my phone stopped sending things. I don’t know why. It’s not dead, just not responding to my enters? Whatever, that’s what the totally awful owls are for, right?

Anyway. I just wanted to write you something. ‘Cause it feels weird not talking to you all the time now. Like, we weren’t friends this summer, but you’ve just buried in and grown roots, like ivy or something. The kind that latches onto brick houses and won’t let go unless you set it on fire? (DO NOT SET YOURSELF ON FIRE IF YOU EVER WANT TO GET RID OF ME THOUGH I WOULD BE SAD) ~~But, like, I can’t move without you anymore. I think about you all the damned time? Is that creepy?~~ It’s totally creepy ignore that. Augh this is so creepy fuck sorry

ANYWAY. Holiday’s almost over. Fuckin finally. It’s been nice to see the parents again, and Angie, but I’m ready to get the hell out of here and back to Hogwarts. Even though I was totally thinking the reverse a month ago. Shite. You think everyone’s forgotten about the Weasley-Malfoy grudge match yet? Damn. I haven’t even tried to talk to them over holiday. I wonder if Rose really stuck her brother’s head in the blender. Fuck, I would’ve, he’s a right prick. And Scorp while I was at it, he was acting something foul. Guess that’s the Malfoy in him.

I don’t get out of France until the day before term starts back, and by then Skitters (that’s this owl, it’s Mère’s) gets back, I’ll be gone. So don’t respond, as awful as that is. I’ll just see you at Hogwarts.

Which, by the way. We should totally do a thing Sunday. Because I dunno if I’ll be able to make it through Levi’s torture hall with you behind me if I haven’t kissed you yet. I’d probably do something dumb, like ~~pull you onto a desk and kiss the freckles off your face~~ actually flirt with you instead of that totally fake flirting we’ve been doing. How long have you _actually_ been flirting with me? Because no one’s ever flirted with me and I’m kind of super thick about shite like that. But you’ve had to be flirting with me for a while. Right???

But yes. Sunday. We should meet up. Find me on the train? We can figure out our shite then. ~~And maybe I can hold your hand for a bit~~ Armin can cover for me. I’ve covered enough for him sneaking around with his shite Gryffindor friends. He’s too good for Jaeger, but he never believes me when I tell him. You should tell him next time. ~~Je vais embrasser les taches de rousseur de ta peau~~

I hope my sudden silence didn’t freak you out. But, like, you probably saw it coming? You know mobiles better than I do. God I hope you figured it out DON’T HATE ME PLEASE I LOKE YOU A LOT PLEASE

… I just tried to write ‘like’ and ’ ~~love~~ ’at the same time. Uh. New word?

Marco. I hadn’t written your name in a while and it felt weird. You know why I call you Marc sometimes, when I’m not paying attention? You get one guess. It’s the French way. My first language is French. Did I ever tell you that? But, like, when I was like five Mère and Dad stopped living together and Dad took us home to Manchester, and Dad never really liked French, so we stopped. But sometimes I still think in French. And Yiddish, but only when I’ve really fucked it up. God, I’m so weird. Why the fuck do you put up with me? Why _are_ you gonna put up with me? My life is one big joke. Except you, of course, you’re not a joke. You’re never a joke. Unless you’re drugged or drunk. You told me I had pretty eyes when you were drugged up. And a whole bunch of other weird shite that I think was supposed to be flirty? (Side note: please cut your fuckin fingernails before I catch you on Sunday)

I should stop writing before I put my foot into a corner. Paint myself into my mouth? Whatever, you know what I mean. ~~I’m gonna snog the daylights out of you~~ I’m gonna see you and do those other things on Sunday. Yeah.

Loke,

Jean


	6. Ravenclaw vs. Slytherin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {A/N: I have a full outline for the rest of this. It's a real thing that's gonna happen. Also: makeouts. [tumblr](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com) [writing playlist](http://8tracks.com/carriecmoney/choosing-sides-and-crooked-lines) [Jean's family headshots](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com/post/85566897871)}

I was so fucking ready to get back to Marco and Hogwarts. I bit the heads off of any family member that tried to talk to me, so by the time Dad dropped me off at King’s Cross on Sunday morning, he barely said goodbye before speeding off. Whatever, I’d apologise after _Marco_. I almost bounced through the station and did a little spin through the platform where no one’d notice. The smell of trains dissipated my short temper, because I was _here_ and it was finally happening.

I didn’t see him on the platform, but that didn’t mean shite, I was a half hour early. I went ahead and got on board to find a compartment before the clean ones were taken. Armin would find me – he always did, in his own time – and I’d hope Marco could take a hint and ask like last time.

My trunk was heavier than I remembered, somehow, even after two weeks of vineyard work, and it just didn’t want to get on the rack above the seats. I was grunting and swearing when I heard rushed footsteps from the corridor and a lightening of the load – an assistant. I looked around the edge of my trunk. It was Boot, my Keeper, with a new haircut and a smile. I smiled back even as my stomach cramped. Not Marco.

We hefted my trunk up, followed by his at his feet. “All right, Captain?”

“Yeah, all right. You have a good holiday?” He winced and ducked his head, doing the little head-shake that used to hide his eyes behind his fringe. I plopped into a seat and crossed my arms. “Spill, Boot.”

“Oh, nothing major, really.” He sat across from me, hands in his sweatshirt’s pockets. “Just spent a lot of his training with my older brothers.”

I frowned. “But your brothers didn’t play.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, exactly.” I cringed.

“Harsh, mate.” Damn. I’d totally forgotten to ask Angie for pointers on him. “You got good presents, right? You Christmas types do presents?”

He snorted. “Yes, we do. They were all right.”

We talked like that for a bit. Out of all my kids, Boot was by far the most sensible of them, which meant I could talk to him without chunking him out the window to run laps around the train. Somewhere in that conversation, the train started, although the mess of teenagers kept swirling by outside our open door.

A dark head already over robes flicked by, came back. “Hey!”

I looked up into Marco’s beaming face and got punched in the gut by my feelings. “Uh. Hey.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled. He stepped into the compartment to avoid getting stampeded by some sixth years and noticed Boot giving him the stink eye. “Oh, you’re Jean’s Keeper, aren’t ya?”

Boot scowled harder. “What’s it to ya, Bodt?”

Marco laughed. “We’re not playing each other until next year, we can stop pretending not to be friends.” He winked at me. “Right?”

“ _Yes_.”

He smiled, robes brushing against my legs in the cramped space. “I gotta go do Prefect stuff, but see you later, Jean? In DADA?”

“DADA isn’t-” He raised his eyebrows, lips puckered a little. Oh. “Uh, yeah, I’ll see you, uh, then.”

“Great!” He beamed at me, nodded at Boot. “See you around, Keep.” He slipped back into the corridor with one last wink. I pulled a leg to my chest and squeezed _hard_.

“You’re smiling, cap.”

I glanced up from my shoe to Boot, who had one of those dumb little knowing half-smiles on. “What’s it to ya?”

“Nothing, nothing.” A pause. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Holly you cheated on her bet.”

My ears burned, but he just smiled and shrugged, changing the topic back to Quidditch.

I was gonna find this kid a personal coach if it killed me.

* * *

Half an hour after the feast, with a good luck wink from Armin, I was slinking down the Defense Against the Dark Arts corridor, eyes darting and skin charged. Marco’d dropped the hint about this place, but I had no idea what that meant-

 _Yank_ on my collar, and I was hauled back into the doorway I was crossing, door slamming shut. It was dark, and someone was breathing and giving off heat in front of me. “’Lo, Jean.”

“Marco.” Damn, that came out wrong. “I can’t see a damned thing.”

He chuckled and lit the top of his wand. We were in some sort of storage closet full of meticulously arranged janitorial supplies, but it was in a weird place to be Gronchi the caretaker’s stash. Marco’s face was cast in sharp shadow above me, and had he always been that much taller than me? “Levi holds his extra cleaning stuff here, so I figured we’d be safe for the moment. None of us Prefects mess with Levi.” He shook his head and smiled at me through his fringe. I’d never really been able to appreciate the exact dark chocolate of his eyes. “Uh. Hi.”

“Hi.” Why was I breathing hard? “So. You got my letter?”

“Yeah, I, uh, did.” He scratched his scalp with his wand, and the shadows jumped and scattered. “And, well. I loke your new word.”

I snorted. “It sounds silly out loud.”

He laughed. “A bit.”

I swallowed, mouth dry. “I can kiss you, right?”

He flushed enough that I could tell even with the lighting and his dark skin. “Whenever you want.”

I took a step forward into his bubble. But this picture wasn’t quite right. I tugged on his sleeve. “You’ve got Muggle cloths on under this, right?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Take this off.” He raised his eyebrows, lips parted.

“Only if you do yours.”

He had to turn off his wand to take off the stupid robe, but I felt a lot better without mine tangling up my ankles. I reached for his breath and felt flannel. Excellent. I snagged my fingers in it and hauled him in, _clunk_ ing my back against a shelf support, his body heat pressing in. He let out a little “oh!”, his exhale hitting my nose.

His hands wrapped at my waist. Nose hit my nose. Mouth – so _that’s_ what a kiss feels like. Soft, wet, squishy. And fuckin’ amazing. I grabbed his head for better leverage and yanked him down for a better angle, opening my mouth against his. He hummed and wrapped his arms tighter in the space between my lower back and the shelf, oh _yes_. That was a tongue. That was cool. I pressed back against it with mine, spine arching a little, wool against flannel and cotton. Body contact felt a lot different like this.

He pulled away a hair, breathing hard against my mouth. “Whoa.”

I hummed and kissed him again, keeping him there, and his hair was probably a big old rat’s nest by now but who gives a shite. My hands slid down to his neck, and he shivered. Mmmm.

It was my turn to pull away – our mouths made a weird sucking noise when I did it – but instead of kissing his mouth, I felt down his jaw with my teeth to the side of his neck. He sighed, belly giving against mine. The three centimeter height difference meant that this was the perfect angle for me, hot damn. I slid my hands all up and down his torso, catching in his opened flannel and cotton T-shirt beneath. My tongue found a tendon on his neck, and he jerked against me.

“Hell.” I chuckled and twirled my tongue on his skin. This was _fun._

One of his hands left my back to grip my hair and pull me away from my nice resting place. My sight had adjusted to the dark enough to make out his eyes, chocolate lost to pupil and white. _We should’ve done this forever ago_ , they said. I couldn’t agree more.

“We should go,” he breathed, even as his hand ghosted down to pull up the hem of my jumper with two fingers to get at my skin. I squirmed, and his teeth flashed white. “Before we get too crazy.”

“Always crazy around you.” My face heated up, and I buried it in his neck. The spot of skin next to my cheek was saliva slick. His two fingers drew tight circles above the waist of my trousers.

We stood there like that for a while, breathing and circling and breathing. He smelled good. Like new wood and paint. I took my face away and was kissed before I could open my eyes. I could get used to that.

The door opened, light flooded in, and Marco sprang away from me. Probably have to get used to that, too.

Professor Levi stood in silhouette there, all metre and a half of his intimidating arse. Shite.

He sighed and crossed his arms. “Does this mean you’ll stop flirting in my class?”

“Probably not, sir.”

“ _Marco!_ ”

Levi just sighed again at Marco’s impertinence. “You didn’t mess anything up in here, from what I can tell, and you’re not past curfew, so I won’t take points off. But, get.”

I tucked my head down and mumbled a ‘yessir’, grabbing my robes from their heap on the ground and slipping past him and his arched eyebrows, Marco on my tail.

When we skittered around the corner, though, Marco shoved me through a tapestry door into the dimly lit corridor behind it, tossed his robes to the ground, yanked mine to the same spot, and pinned me to the wall. “We should do that again.”

I hooked my fingers in his beltloops. “Now?”

“Mmm.” He ducked down to kiss me again, soft and melting. I lost my head to that one, back against stone, and just opened my mouth to his tongue. Not sure why, but it felt really good to have someone else’s tongue behind my teeth. Especially when it was Marco.

He came back from that one in stages, tongue to teeth to lips, until it was just our foreheads together. “Not now, really. Not there. But, again.”

“Wicked.”

I cracked my eyes – his were still closed. When had I wound my leg around his – or gotten my hand up his shirt? A little noise slipped out when I withdrew it – not a whimper, but something like. I traced my fingers (over shirt) around his lower back, his sides, watching his features shift.

 _“Jean_.”

“Yes?”

He opened one eye and found me staring. The corner of his mouth tugged up. “You’re awful.”

“You’re just realising that?” I tugged his shirt down straight and patted it. “And I thought you were bright.”

He stuck his tongue out at me. I licked it. He jerked back, and I grinned. “I’m gonna go,” he told himself with a frown.

“Uh-huh.” My hands slid down into his back pockets. He _squeaked_.

“Stop that!”

“Or what?”

“Or-” He huffed and pressed his mouth to mine, hard, for a few seconds. “Shut it.”

I fucking _giggled_ , what the hell, and squeezed his arse. He puffed out his face-cheeks. Then, in one smooth motion, he pulled aside my jumper’s collar, bent down, and scraped his teeth against my collarbone.

“ _Shite_.” I arched under him, head back, as he bit a line as far down my neck as my collar would allow. It kind of hurt, but in a really, really, _good_ way.

“Smartarse.” He let my collar go and pulled my earlobe through his teeth once. “Can I call you boyfriend yet?”

“ _Fuck_ yes.” My heart, already thumping, beat louder. “Fuck what people think.”

“So I can flirt with you for real, and hold your hand, and fix your hair, and stare at you whenever I want, and-”

I chuckled, hiccupped, head on his shoulder. “Don’t get too kinky on me, Marc.”

“Say something in French for me.”

“Uh. Hang on.” I fished around in my mixed-up brain. “ _Je vais t'épouser un jour_.”

“Mmm. What’s that mean?”

“It means go to bed, you stupid sod.” I extracted myself from my vice around him. “And come over and kiss me in the morning, I need to make some money.”

He smirked. “Only if I get half the pot.”

 _Clickaclickaclicka_ “You _knew?_ ”

He bit his lip, bit mine. “Jean, the entirety of Ravenclaw house bet on my sexuality. Of _course_ I knew.”

“Damn.”

“You used your prior knowledge to your benefit, right?”

“Of course I did, I’m not completely barmy.”

He ran his tongue along my bottom lip. “And this is why I loke you.”

“Shut _up_.”

* * *

I went down early to breakfast with butterflies chasing at my hunger. I hadn’t told Armin about last night since we hadn’t had a private moment yet, but since I’d practically floated into our dorm last night, I think he got the picture. I hoped Marco wouldn’t make _too_ much of a scene.

I glanced towards the section of the Hufflepuff table where Marco and his type usually sat. He was already there and waiting. _thumpathump_ He waved.

My eyes darted to the Ravenclaw table, but when no one seemed phased by my entry, I wandered over to his side. He smiled, all white teeth and big eyes, and slid over to make room for me on the bench. I swallowed. “You sure?”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s just _breakfast_ , Jean. I’m not asking you to marry me.”

 _Yet_. “Right, okay.” I slid in, foot catching on the bench a bit. He chuckled, hand on my elbow, and I glared.

He pressed his knee to mine when they were both under the table. “Besides, it’s the Hufflepuff table, this happens all the time. Leonhardt and Braun sit with Bertl all the time.”

“Huh.” I found the eggs and pulled the plate over. “Where is the colossus, anyway? He’s usually skulking around you, right?”

Marco shrugged. “My kids’ll be by and by. They always are.” His knee was now a full thigh of contact, and I was all shivers. “How you think yours’ll take this?”

“Boot saw it coming. Probably the only one upset’ll be Hardwicke, and that’s because she thought you were straight.”

Marco snorted into his toast. “Well, that’s her own fault, then.”

We set to our breakfasts, still a bit groggy and a bit crackling, legs hot at the contact. I kept watch on our neighbours from the corner of my eyes, but besides an occasional askance glance at my blue collar, a bit out of place in the yellow field, no one paid all that much attention. I learnt to loosen up.

I was refilling my tea mug when Sasha Blouse and Connie Springer plopped down together across the table from us. “All right, Cap’n Morgan?” Springer asked Marco with a grin as Blouse dug in to the fried potatoes with a sleepy wave our way. Marco sighed and shook his head.

“No matter how many times you call me that, I’m not going to dress as a pirate for you.”

I blinked. “Who’s Cap’n Morgan?” Marco did his ‘ _it’s a Muggle thing_ ’ handwave. I rolled my eyes.

Connie’s eyes flicked back and forth between us. “Something you be wantin’ to tell me, Marco?”

Marco bit the corner of his lip _damn_ that was sexy. “Connie, Sasha, boyfriend. Boyfriend, Connie, Sasha.” Both of them twitched at ‘boyfriend’, as did I. Oh no.

“Thank fuck,” Sasha said through a spray of potatoes.

“About fucking time,” Connie said simultaneously. I blinked, ears hot. Marco laughed with an edge, flushing. Connie pushed on. “If we had to watch this tosser sigh at the back of your head anymore we were gonna spew,” he told me, dead serious, while Sasha nodded vigorously behind him.

“Joking! He’s joking! Just exaggerating!”

Sasha rolled her eyes and swallowed. “Love, I’m a bird, and _I_ thought you were embarrassing.” I raised my eyebrows at Marco, whose usual treacle fudge complexion ( _fuck me_ I was using candy to describe his skin) had darkened to a nice raspberry toffee.

“Oh _really_?” At least I’d been good enough to hide my fancy. Mostly.

“Watching you two flirt was _vile_.” I scowled. “Congrats on getting your heads out of your arses, though.” Connie raised his orange juice in a toast, and, suddenly, grating more cheese over the scraps of my eggs was super important.

“Holly Hardwicke is gesticulating wildly,” Sasha said, craning to look around my shoulder. I turned with Marco to see Hardwicke a foot above the rest, spying on me in the least secretive manner possible. Trollop.

“She’s getting laps later,” I mumbled, turned back, and ran smack into Marco’s mouth.

I had time to register marmalade and milk before the taste was gone, but a star died in my mind then. Whispers wove through my open-mouthed stare, and Marco grinned three inches from my face. I cleared my throat. “Good morning to you, too.”

He patted my cheek and sat back, leaving me frozen, head pitched forward, for a good five seconds before Sasha’s faked retching brought me back.

Connie looked a little green about the gills in the real way, though. “Please don’t do that again.”

“Baby.” Marco stuck his tongue out at him, the raspberry hiding high on his cheekbones. “Better get used to it, shortstop.” He sputtered; the bell rang; and I escaped with a bit of marmalade stuck to my cheek.

* * *

I’d been so caught up in Marco and me that the Rose-Scorpius trials from before holiday had totally slipped my mind until that evening in the kitchens. I went down out of habit, and as soon as I opened the painting door and stepped in, I was hit in the face with the sound of house-elves, the smell of awesome food, and how much I’d missed this place. Teeny bounded forward to say hi sir, hello sir, good to see you sir, and I bent down to her level to do the same.

“You treat house-elves abominably well.”

I glanced over at the corner table to Scorpius, almost buried in papers and pastry crumbs, and raised my eyebrows. “That a bad thing, Malfoy?”

He shrugged, and I stood, waving at Teeny as she scurried to work. “Just an observation, Kirschstein.” I dragged myself the last few meters to the table and spread out across from him.

“M’dad’s always said you have to judge people based on how they treat service staff, so I always do my best by them, human or otherwise.”

He snorted. “We have very different kinds of parents, apparently.”

I rested my chin on my hand, looking him over as I stirred in my sugar to my tea. Wild hair, askew collar, dark undereye bags. “Have a rough holiday?”

He grimaced, rolled a shoulder back. “Mum’s little nifflers caught scent of the whole Weasley affair through the Hogwarts grapevine just after Christmas.” I winced. “I’ve been under house arrest since then. Couldn’t even send a bloody owl without their permission.”

“That _is_ rough, mate.” I licked off my teaspoon, opened my mouth to ask about Rose, then closed it. I’d learn in my own good time, and let him suffer on his own until then.

I don’t know how long it was before Rose came in and marched right up – to me? And planted herself, hands on hips.

“What’s this I hear about you’n Dottie snogging at the breakfast table?” Scorpius whipped up from his Transfiguration essay (he already had one, the poor soul). Rose had her frown on, but her eyes were smiling. I flushed despite myself.

“Uh, well, it just sort of happened, y’know…”

“A likely story.” She sat next to me, bag hitting the floor, and leant in, smile too strong to fight it anymore. “So what? Is that it? Come on, little sister, I know you better.”

“Stop _it_.” I buried my face in my hands. “We’ve been dating since New Year’s,” I mumbled into them.

She gasped. “And you didn’t tell _me!_ Christian, I am shocked at you.” She smushed my cheeks together, and I had to pull her off by her wrists. “New Year’s, huh? That must be a story.”

“Not really – it was all texting, nothing fun at all-”

She gasped again. “You have a mobile and _you didn’t give me your number?_ ”

“Marco gave it to me for the holiday, and I barely knew how to turn the dratted thing on – stop it with the face, girl!”

We went on like that for a while, me being quizzed and her being inquisitive, while Scorpius sighed a lot and scratched at his essay. Finally, Rose got fed up with ignoring him and glared, but softened when she took in all of his bedraggled looks. “What happened, love, Mummy read your post?”

He grimaced, not making eye contact. “Something like that.” She let out a tiny pity-noise that only I heard and switched benches to pet over him instead of me. Scorpius grunted about it, but the furrows on his forehead eased until he was leaning into her side with his nose in her hair. I bit my lips closed on my grin and stared down at the table for the rest of the evening.

* * *

January gusted by. Marco and I ferreted out all the interesting, untouched hidey-holes in the castle by the middle of the month (which wasn’t a whole lot), and traded intel with Rose and Scorpius, who were back on if they were ever off. They were rather unclear on the matter. Practices were cold and blustery, and you could soon tell the Quidditch players from the rest by our chapped faces. Marco’s team, who were mostly of the ‘thank God’ variety as to the two of us, said hello to me in the corridors, and our breakfasting together got less awkward over time. OWL prep was swinging into season, too, and between that and flying, there was precious little time to date the shite out of Marco like I’d intended. But I could try.

February came and found the two of us practicing our Charms in my captain’s office (a tip from Scorpius). We at least _opened_ the textbook before we found better charms to practice.

“We should do a thing for Valentine’s,” I said to his jaw. He hummed and prodded me back and onto my desk so he could return the favor.

“What were you thinking?” Oh, _that_ was a good spot. I tilted my head to inform him of that. He opened his mouth over it, yes, _good_. Wait, he’d totally asked me something.

“Huh?”

He laughed, wiggling his fingers under the back waistband of my trousers, and repeated his question.

“I dunno.” I locked my ankles behind his thighs. “We could… go flying, or some shite. Just us.”

He hummed and set my pulse erratic. “Bet the house-elves would pack us a picnic. I’m in.”

“ _Hell_ yeah.” I grabbed his face and smacked a kiss. “You’re on, hot stuff.”

“You think I’m hot?” He smiled, too bright too close.

“Duhh.”

He chuckled. “You’re not so bad yourself, Kirschstein.”

* * *

Valentine’s was a Tuesday, so we observed it Sunday prior instead, taking a few hours out of homework to pick up the nice lunch our downstairs friends were so kind as to make up for us. It even had a handy handle for attaching to a broomstick, which Marco took from me with his customary over-politeness. Whatever.

With our Head of Houses’ blessings (Smith hadn’t said no to me since I beat Marco), we kicked off to find a tree to perch in and eat/snog the morning away. It was the first time in a long time I’d been on a broomstick without Quidditch as the reason, and it was exciting just to fly circles around Marco and make fun of him and his basket. But he just laughed at me.

I was trying to remember how to stand up on my stick when his laughter trailed off. “Y’know, you’re a lot better at flying then I thought you were.”

“Hey! You think a captain would be _bad_ or something?”

“No, no! It’s just – you’re a Beater. Beaters are the worst fliers on a team. At least mine are. And it’s not like you’ve ever shown off in match or whatever. You’re totally good enough to be a Chaser – or even a Seeker. So what happened?”

I shrugged, glad of the cold wind on my hot face. “Well, Angie needed a Beater two years ago, and I wanted to be on her team. I guess it just stuck to me. Plus, it’s fun to hit people without getting into trouble for it.”

Marco laughed, head thrown back. “I’ll never get you, Jean.”

I shrugged, smiling. “That’s okay. I won’t, either.”

* * *

The end of February was the first match of the Easter (or Passover) term, pitting Scorpius and I against each other. But we both sucked dragon eggs, and we knew it. So after the customary corridor snarking, no one really gave a shite about our match, and were all focused on Rose and Marco’s match at the beginning of March. Their teams were known to be impossible in their own ways – Marco had raw talent and overpowering strength on his side, while Rose had family telepathy and long-standing interpersonal bonds holding her team together. Therefore, the silly faces they pulled at each other between classes were much more threatening to the general public that me and Scorpius and our quiet acknowledgements. Laughing at them in the kitchens at night was almost as much fun as Marco winding his ankle around mine while I did it.

The day of my match dawned bright, clear, and cold as a kraken’s stomach. Samuels and Mina made sure that the Scamander twins wore extra jumpers, the thin little bastards, before we left the Tower as a group. Match mornings were usually tense, but today we were semi-relaxed, joking and laughing through breakfast like it was just another Saturday. It was a nice change. When we got up to leave, Marco pulled an Armin and snuck out of the Great Hall without anyone noticing and grabbed a fistful of my jersey.

“Oi- oh, ‘lo, Marc.” I paused in the foyer to smile at him. “All right?”

He grinned. “Can’t I wish my _boyfriend_ good luck without questions?” I wrinkled my nose at him, and he kissed it. “Give Scorpius a knock off that high horse, yeah?”

I ground my tongue between my molars. “Deal.”

“Cap, stop flirting and hurry up, we got a match to win!”


	7. Hufflepuff vs. Gryffindor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {A/N: Hahhhhh.... hah. Hi. I know I yelled over and over that this shit was abandoned, but I gave it another read and decided it was worth finishing. So I'll be doing that in conjunction with my college!au and maybe a second askblog. Don't eat me. I also went back and made some minor edits to the existing stuff, so it might be worth it to reread it yourself.  
> [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/carriecmoney) [tumblr](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com)}

Yeah, we lost. We lost _hard_.

We lost it from the kickoff, to be quite honest. The Slytherin Chasers were far too aggressive for my spindly Scamanders, and Samuels could only do so much against three brutes her size. Bludgers barely nicked these blokes, and I’d have to have a talk with Scorp about his performance enhancers soon. And then, Boot.

I’d always known that my Keeper was my weakness, since everyone else on my team had somewhat gotten used to performing under pressure. Boot, however, just got worse, and the talent I’d seen lurking there during tryouts and practices hid behind fumbling and anxiety when it mattered. It was getting desperate – I’d have to find some help to pull it out of him if I was going to keep him on the team any longer.

I was still tripping over that problem when I went to escape from my (rightfully) angry housemates in the kitchens. I’d even sent up Armin for a change of cloths and something to work on while I scrubbed in solitude in the Prefect’s bath to avoid that discomfort even more.

Rose was there already, several star charts pinned to the wall so they lined up just right while she stood in front of them with her teacup and stared. I dropped my bag at the table, poured my own tea, and joined her. “What’re you doing down here so early?” I asked after a sip.

“Family’s being a bunch of spoiled hens, so I left them to rot in the tower.” She tilted her head at the charts, steam from her tea curling through her hair.

“Ah.” I followed her gaze to the charts. “What’re you looking for?” The little dots blinked and shifted on the parchment (no matter what Marco said, dead animal matter held magic better than dead plant matter). She shrugged.

“Dunno, really. We’re just supposed to ‘familiarise ourselves with the heavens’. Centaurs are vague creatures.”

“You said it, not me.” I sipped my tea, eyes narrowing over the brim of the cup. “Say, Rose. You’re a Keeper.”

“Brilliant deduction, Holmes.”

“What?” She Muggle-waved it off, still staring at her charts. “Whatever. You’re a _good_ Keeper. You any good at teaching it?”

She shrugged. “Not sure.” She sighed, frowning at the stars. “Spit it out, little sister.”

“Boot needs help.”

She finally took her eyes off ‘the heavens’ to raise an eyebrow at me. “You would have me betray my own kind to improve our next opponent’s chances?”

“Did you _see_ today’s game?”

She snorted and took a long sip of her tea. “You’ll owe me, little sister.”

“Already do.” She blinked at me. “You invited me into this mess, back at the start of term. It got me a boyfriend.” She laughed, bumping her shoulder into my bicep.

“You’n Dottie are too good not to have figured it out eventually, corner or no corner. But I’ll take the credit.” She smiled absently at the ink stars. “What’s your Keeper’s first name again?”

“Matthew. He’s a good kid, just needs a good kick in the arse.”

“Heh. Boot. Kick.” She gulped her tea while I groaned. “I believe in supporting Keepers, even if they work for the enemy. I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’re a gem, Rose.”

“I know.”

* * *

I didn’t tell Boot my plans for him the next day at breakfast, but just sat down with my best Dad face on and told him that we were having private sessions on the back field today. The rest of the team mocked him for a bit until I told them they had their own all-day practices – led by Armin, who grinned with all his teeth from next to me.

Boot and his broom followed me, heads down, around the castle walls to the cliffside that shielded Hogwarts from rear entrance. A large flat wall made for good Keeper practice – Rose had mentioned it more than once – and the grass underfoot was better landing than most.

When we got to the foot of the cliff, I picked a rock to sit on and waited, broom crossed over my knees. Boot stood in front of me, shifting from foot to foot. “So, what’s my punishment, then?”

“You grew up in a strange house, kid.” I squinted at the walk from the castle. “It’s just me doing something I should’ve done months ago, no punishment needed.” I frowned. “Well, I think so. It depends on how she teaches.”

“Who’s she?”

I grinned. “You’ll see.”

Rose came skipping up from the castle before long, broom swinging. Even from here, her bright red hair shone against the dirty snow. “Uh, Cap?”

  
Relax, Boot. She won’t bite.”

She skidded to a stop in front of me, giving Boot a once-over. “So, this is my new charge?”

“Rose, this is Matthew Boot. Boot, this is Rose Weasley. Be friends.”

Boot’s jaw swung closed on its hinge. “Uh. Hi.”

Rose crossed her arms and gave him A Look. “Not much of a talker, huh?”

“ _Nope_ ,” I answered. Boot clutched his broom tighter. I rolled my eyes. “Rose, show him your teeth so he knows you’re not a vampire.”

She laughed. “Nah, I’ll keep him on his toes.” She whapped Boot’s arm. “All right, cowboy, here’s the story. Little sister here is cashing in a favor to get me to get you to stop sucking so much. You up for it?”

Boot looked to me – I nodded – back to her, smile pulling up a corner of his mouth. “Really?”

I sighed and took out my training planner I’d stuffed in the pocket of my sweatshirt (a late not-Christmas present from Marco) and a pencil. “Honestly, you’ve needed a personal trainer since September, but I had my head up my own arse and dallied. Rose’ll whip you into shape in no time.” I nodded to her, and she did a flowery bow back. Boot ran a hand through his hair, breath frosting in the air with his laugh.

“Well, I can’t say this is what I expected.” He bit his lip and glanced at Rose. “Is this even legal?”

“It’s not _il_ legal.” Rose waved him over to a flat space where the snow was thinner and the dead grass was poking through. “C’mon, kid, I wanna see what you got on the ground.”

Boot stared. “What?”

“Any Keeper worth their salt can defend just as well on their feet as in the air.” She rooted around in the crannies of the cliff and came back with a beaten Quaffle, seams ripping. She tossed it up high towards him; he dropped his broom and caught it with the tips of his fingers. She raised her eyebrows. “Nice.” She cut her eyes to me. I opened a hand at him, then caught his broom when she picked it up and tossed it over. “Against the wall, cowboy, and on your knees. We’re doing this Muggle-style.” His eyes blew wide, but she flicked her hand to the wall, mouth puckered. I laughed as he obeyed and set on altering my practice schedules as they got started, a rhythm of thumps and jeers.

* * *

At break on Tuesday morning, I trapped Marco in a corner of the courtyard, where his attention was split between homework for three classes and play diagrams scratched out across the brushed-off stone. With Armin’s help, I confiscated his work and stuffed it back in his bag, forcing him to spend fifteen minutes talking about stupid teenager stuff with us instead of trying to grow up too fast. He tried to protest, but I stuffed his bag behind my back and held both of his hands hostage in my lap, drawing lazy designs over them with one of his gel pens while Armin smiled and chatted about the weather. Marco sighed and gave in, relaxing back into my chest where he could feel my heart patter right through the five layers between our skin.

It was like that Rose found us, plopping down next to Armin to complete our circle. “So, when do you want me and your darling doormat to have another torture session?”

“Rose, that’s not very nice,” Marco said, adjusting his lean against me so we were more shoulder-to-shoulder, his far hand slipping away from mine. I hooked our fingers together and connected more of his freckles into constellations – Cassiopeia.

She stuck out her tongue. “True, though. If he’s ever gonna be a good Keep, he’ll need to be the foot, not the mat.” She glanced at our joined hands, up at me. “So?”

I shrugged, ducking under Marco’s arm and swinging our hands around so he was draped around my neck. His damp breath huffed against my hot cheek. “Whenever you’re both free, I guess. You should talk to him about it.”

She threw up her hands. “Unbelievable. You’re a terrible captain, you know that? Dragging me into this and leaving me to my own! I have _my_ team to keep intact, you know.”

I grinned, thumb tracing the grooves of Marco’s palm, tongue caught between my teeth. “But you just can’t resist the only poor little struggling Keeper in Hogwarts, can you?”

She frowned. Marco’s Bertl didn’t even need to move to defend all three hoops, and Scorpius’s Reiss was an adorable pinpoint of blonde fire on a broomstick. “Fine. You got me. Tell him to look for me at lunch, yeah?”

“Will do.” She probably would’ve gotten up to leave then, but Scorpius came up and sat beside her instead, snow dusting his floppy hair.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” She wound herself around his arm and leant in. “Jean hired me on as his Keeper coach.”

“Did he now?” He raised his eyebrows at me. “What’re your prices, Rosie?”

“Haven’t decided.” She smiled at me, all teeth. Armin snorted. “You were right, though, he’s got talent. Now I just need to dig out a personality to match.” We laughed and talked until the bell rang and we split our own ways, house by house, Armin humming by my side and eyeing the people still watching the strange corner meeting in confusion.

“I see why you’ve been spending all your time down in the kitchens.”

Shite. “Ar, you know I was never ignoring you-” He laughed over me.

“It’s fine, Jean, I _do_ have friends besides you.” He smiled up at me. I smiled back. He shrugged and looked away. “Maybe I miss you just a bit. Don’t get cocky about it.”

I grinned. “You could come down there with me tonight?”

He brushed his fringe aside. “You think?”

“Sure. They obviously like you, and with OWLs coming up, me and Marco could use all the help you can give us.”

He laughed into his armful of books. “All right, then.”

* * *

It took all of five minutes for Armin to become another staple of the kitchens table. He’d already met everyone at various points in the year, and it’s pretty much impossible not to like Armin. Rose knew him from Jaeger and Ackerman’s childhood stories as the smart, level-headed one, and had no problems turning to him to complain about the struggles of running a team made up of their mutual family members. He and Scorpius bonded over haircuts. The three of us fifth years hunkered down over the latest experimental Potions assignment from Hanji, and from then on everything fell into place. Which was good, because it was taking all three of us plus hints from the sixth years to muscle through the OWL preparation homework, which had turned into a whole new classification of monster. We spent most of the evening helping each other through the latest assignments, mutters over tea and biscuits and the latent bustle of the house-elves.

Armin is really great in a lot of ways, but the best way is in how he can read a room and act accordingly. When we all packed up to leave for the night, my hands were itching to get under Marco’s tawny jumper. Armin took one look at me and made some excuse about running ahead for the toilet, with a bad wink over his shoulder at me as he went around the corner. I snagged Marco’s hand and ducked into a niche whose suit of armour was out on its rounds, cramming him against the wall. He grinned down at me, eyes lowered.

“Mixing it up, huh?”

“Shut it.” I held his face and kissed him, hard and eyes clenched shut. He gave under me, fingers working into the waist of my trousers to draw shivers on my skin. I broke away, breath caught between us, his pupils blown wide, a wood rim around them. “I missed kissin’ you, is all.”

He smiled, a slow spread that warmed my toes. “The feeling’s mutual, love.” He ducked in to kiss me again, soft caramel on my tongue, and I opened up to try and take it all in and memorize for later, molding against him and trailing my fingers up the hem of his jumper. He shivered and let me.

The suit of armour kicked us out a while later, grumpy and huffing through its visor as we straightened our jumpers and ran away from his kicking, giggling and sharing another corner caramel kiss before splitting off to run back to our own beds, where we could stare at the canopies and ignore the jibes and knowing looks from our yearmates.

* * *

Now, I didn’t tell anyone about Boot and Rose’s lessons, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t, either, but the walls wept gossip in this damned castle, and by Wednesday everyone had talked to someone who had seen the two of them having their one-on-one behind the castle. Oh well. They kept going anyway, mum to the brave few who asked directly. Boot was shining under her attentions, and that guilt of not having done this earlier set in with every distracted smile at practice. Rose was having fun having a new soul to torment, too, as I learned each night when she sat in Scorp’s lap and told me all about what she and ‘her cowboy’ were working on.

They were lucky to be even years and actually having free time to _have_ one-on-one practices. Us fifth years were swimming in OWL droppings – the tests were in _June_ , for Merlin’s sake. I didn’t think any of us would last the three months and change until then, but if I had to pick the first one who would crack, it would definitely be Marco. The poor bloke had put up with being Quidditch captain and Prefect well so far, but it didn’t take a Seer to figure out he was cracking. His appearances in the kitchens shrank down to a few minutes to say hello and kiss my cheek (the bugger), and tracking him down during the day proved to be a disaster as the hype for his and Rose’s match built up and the players could barely walk down the hallways without being bombarded by any sort of object. Even with the combined efforts of our teams, who had banded together like new in-laws at a wedding, he slipped away at every class change. The cupboard adventures of January faded into memory, and I really just wanted another hour to try and figure out what he tasted like that day.

The only places he could be guaranteed to be were class and Quidditch practice. With the conniving assistance of Connie and Sasha, who’d taken to me the strongest of the Hufflepuff sett, we got him to show up to the pitch almost a full hour early one afternoon the week of their match. I was waiting by the pitch entrance when he stomped up, broom propped next to me and breath fogging. The snow was old and dirty now, packed down by Quidditch boots until the dead grass below pricked through, pale brown on off-white, on the winding path from the castle doors down. Marco was staring at the ground as he walked, probably planning out his overbooked calendar in his head. Goof.

He didn’t look up until he was a few steps away, then ground to a halt before he ran into me. “Jean?”

“Hey, boychik.” I reached out and twisted my fingers in the fringe of his muffler and yanked him closer (with a strangled _hrk_ on his part). “Haven’t seen you much lately.”

“Yes, well.” He realigned his grip on his broom so it wouldn’t gut me. “I’ve been very busy, doing all of the – the Prefecting stuff, and the homework, and the, the being busy-”

I smiled at his mutterings, holding his eye contact. “You said ‘busy’ twice.”

“Well I’m very busy.” He cleared his throat, color high on his cheeks. “Say, it’s a treat you’re down here, I’ve been wondering if you could take a look at my Beaters’ form and see if you couldn’t sharpen it up a little before the match, like Rose did with that Keeper of yours-”

I pressed my fingertips to his mouth, shaking my head. “Nope, they’re not here until they’re supposed to be.” I wound my other wrist up in his muffler, pulling him tighter. His eyes were wide over my hand, lips parted. “I’ve been trying to date the shite out of you like I promised, but you’ve been making it _very difficult_.” My fingers moved over his mouth, skimming the chapped flakes there as I watched, his panting short and quick. “So right now, it’s just you, me, and an empty pitch.” I dropped my fingers to sling that arm around his neck. His hands came to rest at my waist, broom brushing my hat. I grinned. “Think you can handle it?”

A smiled tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Like I can’t handle anything you can throw at me.”

“You’re forcing my hand, love.” I unspun my hands and twisted out of his loose hold, ears hot under my hat as I grabbed my broom ducked out onto the pitch. “C’mon, let’s see what you’ve got, slowpoke.”

He laughed behind me, taking his own broom and following. “Oh, it’s like that, huh?” I grinned over my shoulder as I mounted up and kicked off, twisting to a halt a few metres above him. He shaded his eyes from the glare of the midwinter sun. “Well, aren’t you just a pretty little showpony?”

I laughed, pulling a loop in the air as I yelled down, “Hey! That’s a horse joke! You haven’t made one of those in ages!” I finished my loop as he flew up to my level, knocking our knees together.

“Silly.” He whipped around to hover facing me, noses of our brooms touching, tongue tip breaking up the white flash of his grin. “All right, Mr. Equestrian. Show me what you can do.” I laughed and dropped under him, racing to the goalposts and yelling at him to catch up.

* * *

The day of the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff showdown broke crisp and bright, like orange juice chilled enough to make your teeth hurt. Marco and Rose made faces at each other across the hall at breakfast, but both teams were loud and obnoxious in their happy taunts. I got dragged down to the Hufflepuff table from my cozy nest of my own team by Marco’s underlings, stuffed backwards on the bench next to him. He was drunk on that cocktail of nervous and excitement that every athlete knows, and slung an arm around my waist and cinched me tight to his side when I say down, burying his giddy smile in my neck. My face burned like green wood, but I could feel Marco’s doing the same, so I just laced our fingers together over my hip and sneered back at Rose and her clan for him.

“You’re gonna crush them,” I whispered into his hair. He squeaked.

“You think?”

“I _know_.” I squeezed his hand. “But don’t worry, I won’t dump you if you lose. I’m not that fickle.”

Marco laughed, a quick bark against my shoulder. “Thanks, Jean.”

“Any time. Now eat something, for me.” He sighed and pulled his face away to chew on a piece of marmalade-laden toast. I twisted to snatch some coffee, handily poured out by Hannah Diamant, one of the Beaters Marco had gotten me to help with after our flying date. The other one was her boyfriend Franz Kefka, and while I fully understood the draw of flirting while flying, it didn’t make for good play. They’d figure it out, but probably not before Marco strangled me to death at the breakfast table. She smiled at me as she slid the mug across the table, Franz pressed close to her side as well, heavy Czech accent rolling over the team’s banter.

“Hey Dottie Bodt! Need your pet horsie to tuck you in?”

“Fuck off, Thornbush!” I yelled back at Rose, who was standing on the Gryffindor bench and still not taller than her… relative, standing beside her. She laughed, head thrown back, and Marco shook beside me. Rose flipped her nose at me and hopped down, leading her team down the hall and out the front door, slapping most of the Gryffindor’s hands as they ran by, a cheer wafting down the table.

“I guess that’s my cue.” Marco popped the last of his toast in his mouth and left crumbs on my cheek as he extracted himself from me, jerking his chin towards the door. I turned to watch him go and didn’t see Sasha and Connie swooping in to smack their own kisses on my cheeks. I jerked back, banging my elbow on the table, and they cackled. Sasha ruffled my hair, winking.

“For luck!” I swiped at my damp cheeks with my sleeves, cringing and gagging. They kept laughing until Marco came back and grabbed them by the collar, hauling them down the Great Hall to the applause of his table, sun glinting through the high windows and bathing the hall gold. I sighed and watched him go, rubbing idly at my cheek.


	8. Pickup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {A/N: Oh yeah. I'm gonna finish this. [tumblr ](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com)[twitter](http://www.twitter.com/carriecmoney) [art I did for the last chapter](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com/post/107179771376)}

The Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match lived up to its hype and more. It was the longest match in Hogwarts recent history, taking a full three hours for the Snitch to get caught in the _seventh_ run for it. It was also the most _awesome_ match in the history of Quidditch, mostly because Marco was on point so hard I’m surprised all the Weasleys escaped without scratches. He and his kids _won_ , four hundred fifty to three hundred thirty, and the stands, which had been building up steam throughout the match, _exploded_ when Ada snagged the Snitch almost out of a Slytherin bystander’s hair. We stormed the pitch as the teams came down for their handshakes, the internal staircases of the stands rattling down around our ears as we pounded down them, cold sun and sharp wind breaking up the body heat cloud condensing inside.

I was hoarse and wind-chapped when my section of the throng emerged onto the grass and hopped over the low fence around the pitch, my cheeks numb from grinning. I shoved through the crowd towards midfield, where the teams had last been seen above our heads. Mufflers and coats gave way to yellow and red, and Marco was the focal of it all, jersey soaked through and hair dripped with sweat, hunched under the weight of his other Chasers and laughing, eyes squinted shut. I froze, breath knocked out of me and not by the battery of kids at my back. He glanced up and found me, brilliant blue curved overhead. His eyes crinkled.

We met in the middle, him running and me floating. He dropped his broom and scooped me up, arms tight around my waist as he swung me around, a wild laugh echoing while I clung to his neck and the school cheered. My feet were still off the ground when he kissed me, hard and salty, but I held his face and kissed back until he set me down and the catcalls penetrated our sunshine bubble. It popped with a flutter – oh, that was just his panting lungs against my belly. I kept my grip on his face, sick with his viral laughter.

“That was feckin’ awesome!” I yelled in his face – it was the only way to be heard.

His fingers tightened at my waist, body heat wrapped around me. “ _I know!_ ” His cheeks were stained red, the skin around his mouth pale, his eyes shiny and huge. I kissed him again, arching back as he shoved himself into it, not quite dipping me but still sending my brain for a spin. I was the only one who heard the little whimper he let out right before he yanked away and spun to his teammates, arms sliding out from around me, one hand catching mine.

“Let’s hear it for the team!” he called in his field-general voice. The school (the whole _school_ ) erupted. Marco’s slick hand tightened around mine. I lifted it in the air when the noise died down to a roar.

“Let’s hear it for the captain!” I had less of the carrying tone to my voice, but it didn’t matter when they exploded again and Marco’s team swamped him, forcing him to let go of me as he fell under their weight.

The professors broke it up soon after, but not before Rose came over for another tear-filled handshake (Marco hugged her, the loon) and we got in two more sloppy celebration snogs, to the continual jeers of the mob.

It wasn’t kosher, but when we got back to the castle, Marco refused to let me go and hauled me down the kitchens corridor, the lingering Ravenclaws singing a Muggle song about trees and carriages from the stairs. We went past the kitchens _still life_ (Marco had been livid the one time I called it a portrait and lectured me all evening) and on down to a wrought-iron latticework set into the end of the corridor, circular and person-sized. The person who said the password was too far away for me to hear over the excited chattering, but the way the iron curled and coiled away to reveal a hole that hadn’t been beneath it before was hard to miss. The Huffs took it as old news and hopped through, some swinging over with the iron spirals as a monkey bar. Marco turned to me as he stepped in, but I held back.

“You sure this is okay? I mean, I don’t mind giving you time to celebrate with your friends-”

Marco laughed, hair spiked in sticky clumps, and tugged me forward. “Hufflepuff lets _everyone_ in, even other houses. C’mon, it’s all right.” He tugged me again. I bit my lip.

“I just - I’ve been hogging up, like, all your free time lately, and they’re probably all sick to death of my face-”

Marco sighed and took his foot out of the door. We were the last ones in the corridor now, everyone else having streamed by as I flopped around. He pulled me in close, slower this time, easier. “You’re my boyfriend, Jean, but you’re my _friend_ , too.” He smiled, eyes soft, and twisted a spike of my hair. “I don’t ever want _not_ to spend time with you?”

“Yeah?” I coughed, and he chuckled, rubbing his damp cheek against mine for a second. I grinned, ducking my head to knock against his shoulder. “Good, then we’re on the same page.” He beamed and kissed me again, a small sunburst, and I was gonna be Marco-spoiled by nightfall.

He led me through the gate and down a short tunnel of beaten earth into a land of mismatched sofas, too many pillows, and real life plants trailing out of the walls. Round windows set into the crevices not taken up by green things let in the orange-juice sunshine in spots, the rest of the light provided by the cloud of yellow crammed onto every flat surface. When Marco came around the corner, there was another roar, quieter than the field but livelier, pockmarked with individual shrieks. Marco raised a hand like the fucking Minister of Magic, the other one keeping me tethered to his side. He led me through the crowd, getting my own share of back-slaps when Marco’s was occupied. I guess even a rival can be accepted when they’re attached to the current hero.

The team was already piled at a table at the end, dirt and grass flaking off and mixing into the hard dirt floor. Well, there was a secret for why the Hufflepuffs always smelled the best. There was food waiting on us, energy-reviving starchy stuff to make up for tight stomachs at breakfast. The team shoved Marco down at a spot in the middle, and I got squashed to his side again, Franz of Hannah-and-Franz hemming me in on my other side while Marco laughed with his team and shoved food in his mouth. Franz and I smiled at each other, the thigh pressed to his just body heat while Marco’s side was electricity. But I liked Franz, who never talked too much and knew to wait on a Bludger to swing around for the better angle. “You played well today.”

He smiled wider. “So did everyone, of course.”

I elbowed him, ignoring the chill that bolted up my spine when Marco’s arm crept around my waist to cinch me tight to his side. Franz’s eyes narrowed, but Hannah was holding his other side’s arm hostage, so he kept his mouth shut. I wrinkled my nose at him. “You two still can’t fly worth a damn, though.” He grinned, and Hannah leant around him.

“I heard that!”

“Well it’s true!” I poked his arm with two fingertips. “You still fly like you’re stuck on the ground. Flying is _three dimensional_ , remember?”

Franz ducked his head in a nod, Hannah sighing and resting her chin on his shoulder. “So you’ll teach us how to do that, right, cap?”

I opened my mouth, closed it. Marco turned at the mention of his (our?) nickname.

“Yes?”

Hannah-and-Franz laughed as some older Hufflepuffs came up to talk about the game with them. My face burned for no freaking reason – Marco hadn’t even said anything _remotely_ embarrassing, what the hell. Marco nuzzled into my hair and murmured, “What’s their problem?”

“They suck, that’s what.” I fluffed out my hair, and he shifted away, arm still heavy against my back. “Can I keep working with them? It’s kind of fun, honestly.”

“I don’t see why not.” I felt his grin against my ear. “I won’t fight free help.”

I smiled over my shoulder at him. “Now who says it’s free?” His eyes went wide, lips parted. I tugged at the sleeve at my hip. “Wanna consult with me about my Chasers?”

“They’re disjointed as a ragdoll and twice as useless.” He blinked when I raised my eyebrows, breath hot against my neck. “I- I mean, well, it’d take me a _year_ to get them into the shape I’d want, but really, you should talk to Ymir, not me.”

I blinked, grin shocked away. “That Slytherin Chaser? The skinny one?”

Marco shook his head out and nodded. “She’s dealt with those two lunkheads for a few years now. She’s bound to have some pointers for that big girl of yours to help get the twins into line.”

“Huh. Not a bad idea, Dottie.” I twisted on the bench to face him a little better. “Maybe you’ve got something besides rocks in that pretty head of yours after all.” He wrinkled his nose at me, digging his fingers into my side. I caved, squirming against his tickling. “Shite, mate, stop- shove it, seriously-” I gasped, laughing, breathless, as he chuckled but relented.

“You’re too easy to mess with, love.” He kissed my cheek, a wet smack, then got distracted by the kids who’d been talking to Hannah-and-Franz as they bounced over to him. I sighed and picked at my sandwich, twining our ankles under the table as he shouted about his game some more. He had the right to that, after all.

* * *

The Gryffindors took it well, all considering. After all, even though they’d lost, they’d played a hell of a match, and I saw more than one Weasley get a hi-five in the corridor between classes. Rose’s eyes still had that just-been-crying sheen to them, but when I smiled at her after Charms, she smiled back, planting a tea rose in my pocket as a hello, only baby thorns on it.

Ymir was a seventh year and a different house, so by all accounts I should barely have known her face. But she was dating Krista Reiss, the Slytherin Keeper and the shortest kid in my year. Ymir must’ve had, like, only two NEWTs or something, because she was always waiting for Krista after her classes to walk her to the next one, Krista’s head barely hitting her shoulder. I just waited until Herbology let out and waved Armin on as I tagged Krista through the glass doors into the blustery day outside. Ymir was leaning against a giant squash… thing, checking her nails with her ankles crossed, smacking some very contraband gum. After running with Marco for so long, both post and pre-dating, I knew the scent of Wintermint Orbit from a block away.

Krista wafted over to her, floating on a cloud of rainbows or some shit. She couldn’t be _that_ innocent, she was a Slytherin, for Merlin’s sake. Ymir slung an arm around her shoulders and made for the castle, and I was about to miss my chance, shite. I hopped through the garden (Mére would blast through time and space if I stepped on a plant) after them. “Hey, wait up!”

They turned as one, both frowning. “What’s your damage, kid?” Ymir growled. Ah yes, _there’s_ the Slytherin charm we all love. I opened my mouth and – shite, I had no idea how to say this. Ymir raised a long eyebrow. “Well, spit it out.”

“I wanna ask a favor,” I said, looking at Ymir. She made a face and gestured to herself. I nodded. She snorted, half-grinning down at her girlfriend, then turned around fully, letting go of Krista to shove her hands in her pockets, head tilted up. “All right, kid, what che need?”

“Your help.” I tugged at the baby hairs behind my ear. “Quidditch help.” Merlin, this was easier when it was Rose.

Ymir blinked; Krista crossed her arms. Ymir’s nose wrinkled when she said, “Isn’t that what your pretty boyfriend is for?”

I shook my head, ears burning under my hat. “I already asked him, but he said to talk to you. That you’d understand my problem more.” Ymir smacked her gum and exchanged a glance with Krista, who had that same half smile on.

“Little Marcoroni’s deferring to _me_ for a Quidditch problem? Oh, this I gotta know.” Ymir jerked her head back to the castle and the plodding snake of students slithering back into the castle. “Step into my office, young Kirschstein.” I rolled my eyes – I thought _Scorpius_ was an asshole – but followed their lead back into the castle. Herbology was the last class of our day, so I got dragged to yet another house’s table to eat. Ravenclaw and Slytherin always had a lot of crossover, though, so joining the two of them at the end of the table wasn’t a big jump. Ymir stuck her gum to her plate and snagged a chicken leg, sitting sideways on the bench to use her girlfriend as a backrest (I heard a sigh around her skinny shoulders) and faced me, chomping away again. “So. Spill.”

I fixed my tea, frowning at the sugar. “I got two boys who get blown away in any Nargle-infested wind and a teenaged girl who thinks brute force will solve all her problems.” I grinned at her. “Sound familiar?”

Ymir sighed, reclining on Krista, who grunted. “Beevis and Butthead over there were never in danger of Snargles or whatever, but I see Marco’s point. And I’ve seen them play, they _suck_.”

I snarled, but kept my lip from curling too much by changing the topic. “How do you know Marco so well, anyway?”

She grinned, a wolf’s smile. “You know about his Muggle-goods sideshow, yeah?” I nodded, dragging some potatoes onto the plate in front of me so I could pick at them. “I help him get things too unsanitary for an ickle Huff’s clean hands to touch.”

Krista got tired of Ymir’s shite and leant back abruptly, and I had a great second of seeing all the bravado sink from Ymir’s face as she fell back into Krista’s lap, long limbs flailing. Krista smiled down at her, brushing the hair away from Ymir’s forehead as she winked at me. “I help, too.”

I cackled, nose wrinkling at Ymir’s frown. “That explains a lot.”

“Yeah, like I know that Marco’s a little shit at heart.” Jean snorted, and Ymir grinned around her chicken leg, not bothering to sit up from her sprawl as just eating in her girlfriend’s lap. Krista slapped the crown of her head.

“Don’t say rude things about people’s boyfriends.” Krista smiled at me, the devil shining in her angel eyes. “I’m still working on housebreaking her, I’m sorry.”

Ymir squawked, and I laughed as she shoved herself up to sit, swinging her leg over the bench and kicking me in the ribs. She banged her elbows down on the table hard enough to shake the cutlery. “What’d’you want me to do about it, punk?”

“Uh.” I scratched the line of my undercut with the butt of my fork. “Just, like, talk to Sue? Give her advice and shite? I mean, the twins are a lost cause, they won’t do shite unless they want to. They’re really big cats like that.” Ymir snorted into her food (she ate like a damned wild animal), grinning. I smiled back. “But poor Sue, she’s just out of her depth trying to keep them in.”

Ymir nodded, chewing on her second chicken leg. “A’ight, but Marco’ll owe me.”

I cocked my head. “Not me?”

Ymir cracked her wolf-smile at me. “You haven’t got a thing I need, little cur, but Marco _always_ has something I want.” I bristled, but she waved it off. “He’d know that before he sent you to me, anyway, don’t set your broom on fire.”

“Well, if you’re sure.” I set in on my potatoes again, looking around the table now that the affair was settled. It was still early for the dinner rush, so the tables were only dusted with early eaters and cross-house study groups - more than I usually saw, but not to a remarkable extent. I ate absently as Ymir and Krista bickered about Marco’s payment. Scorpius was a few sections of table away, frowning at a textbook and trying not to stare at us. Shite, I’d totally forgot to clear this with him. I excused myself, promising to hook her and Sue up soon, and took my tea with me as I ducked around the table to sit next to Scorpius, who didn’t look up from his book.

“Conniving with the enemy, Kirschstein?”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Malfoy, you’re not _that_ bad.” Scorpius shot me a slanted ice look, but a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. I shrugged, sipping my tea. “It was Marco’s idea, and I need some help with my Chasers, you know that. Sorry I forgot to ask cap’s permission first, though.”

He laughed, head ducked to his chest and eyes closed. I frowned, biting my cheek - since when did he laugh like Marco? It stopped, though, and I shook it out as he reached for his own tea. “You won’t be able to call your team Ravenclaw if you keep pulling us into this, you know.”

I wrinkled my nose at him. “Is there a _rule_ against working with what you have?” Scorpius turned to me, head propped on the hand not holding his mug. Had he always been left-handed, or was this Marco under Polyjuice? I spun my mug around on the table by the handle. “I mean, if I _could_ I’d drag in actual trainers to work with my kids, but that’s not exactly an option, and since all the decent Ravenclaw players not on the team hate me, well. That leaves you guys.” I shrugged, watching the few tea leaves that had slipped in from the pot spun around at the bottom of my cup. “Made sense to me, I guess.”

Scorpius nodded, hiding his face behind his mug. “It does.” He lowered his mug and gestured down at Ymir and Krista. “Ymir’s a pain in the arse, though. Good luck.”

I laughed, an ugly chortle deep in my throat. I slapped a hand over my mouth; Scorpius’s forehead furrowed under his chopped fringe. I glanced over at the Gryffindor table – Rose and her pride weren’t there yet, but I caught at least five sets of curious eyes checking out our easy interaction. Oops. I dropped my hand, frowning. Scorpius’s eyes narrowed. “What plan’s clicking in that brain of yours, little sister?”

I hummed, drumming my fingers on the table as I stared out over the hall, which had started to fill up. “Still thinking.” Armin’s hair bobbed between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables to settle between Eren and Mikasa, who greeted him with ruffles and smiles. I stood, slinging my bag over my shoulder and draining the last of my tea. “Tell you about it in the kitchens tonight?”

Scorpius deferred to me with a little head bow and a wave of his mug. I flashed a smile and went around to kidnap Armin from his friends.

* * *

“Just because my team sucks doesn’t mean I have to be the only one to recruit outside help,” I pitched to the captains (sans Prefect Marco) that night, Armin at my side. “I mean, you saw Saturday’s match. Matches are a hell of a lot more interesting when the teams are matched and good, right?” Scorpius opened a hand in agreement. Rose huffed, but nodded, mouth a thin line. “We don’t have to _practice_ together or anything, but I know my team gets tunnel vision with the same seven people all the time.” I smiled at Rose. “And Boot won’t shut up about you.” She ducked her head, smiling. Scorpius raised an eyebrow over her head at me, skinny arm slung loose around her neck where she sat sideways in his lap.

“People will think we’re sharing house secrets.”

Armin shrugged. “Hogwarts is a gossip factory, anyway.” He held up a thin black notebook I knew intimately, his sadist smile creeping up on his face. “I’ve been analyzing all of the teams for years now.” Scorpius and Rose sat up straight at that, swinging to him with bug eyes. “I know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses – most pro teams, too, because I got bored.” I grinned at Rose’s fish face and Scorpius’s frown. Armin flipped his hair from his eyes.

“Did I ever tell you that Armin is the scariest small child you’ll ever meet?”

Armin fluttered his eyelashes at me. “You’re too kind, Mr. Kirschstein.” Rose snatched at the notebook, but Armin pulled it back, tsking. “Don’t be hasty, now.”

Scorpius was grinning behind Rose’s pout. “You definitely didn’t tell me you had a mad genius locked away in your tower.” Scorpius tilted his head at Armin. “You’re not secretly friends with Al, are you?”

Armin shook his head. Rose snapped several times, thumping on Scorpius’s shoulder with the other hand. “Oh! Oh! That’s a _fantastic_ idea! They’d get along like gnomes in a potato patch!”

Armin tilted his head, hair flopping. “Al who?”

Rose gestured vaguely in the air. “My cousin, the middle Potter kid, you know.” She looked up at Scorpius. “He shadows your practices, doesn’t he?”

Scorpius smiled. “He thinks I don’t know.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “You mean he hasn’t been reporting back to you?”

She shook her head. “The whole Slytherin thing is pretty taboo dinner table talk at the family gatherings, so Al doesn’t talk about it much.” She shrugged. “That’s just how he is.” Scorpius nodded, flicking his eyes back to a curious Armin.

“If you want to join him and compare notes about my practices, I’d be all right with that.”

“Oh.” Armin deflated, book falling to the table with his previous malice. “That’s what I was gonna ask for, anyway.”

Rose laughed, an ugly chortle in her throat. Scorpius and I exchanged a glance over her head. She leant one elbow on the table to grin at Armin. “You’re welcome to haul him along to mine, too, as long as you _tell_ me whatever loose ends you two nerds pull out of my team.” Armin ducked his head, twisting a strand of hair between two fingers.

“Well, I can’t promise I’ll be _that_ helpful-”

I snorted, cuffing him on the head. “Shut up, asshole.” I mussed his hair, making him squawk and shove me away. “This kid’s the only reason I got kicked around by you instead of pulverised.” Armin shook his hair in front of his face, the tip of his ear flashing red under it.

“Oh, thank you.” He cleared his throat and flipped open his notebook to where the ribbon bookmark was slotted. “I’ve made a preliminary list of potential crossovers we could do, but, of course, if you have any ideas or concerns, just speak up.” He handed the notebook to Rose, who held it so both of them could read. “And, honestly, who don’t our substitutes train with the team? All the Muggle sports do it, so why shouldn’t we?”

Rose made a strangled noise, flapping the notebook in the air. “That’s what I’ve been _telling_ Mr. Neville for _years_! It makes _no sense_ to just drag ‘em in when we’re in danger, but _no_ , we have to be fair to _everyone_ , and if Gryffindor does it then _everyone_ gets to do it, and he has to talk to the other Heads and I _know_ he’s forgetting on purpose now-” She stopped, looking around at us, eyes wide and face red. “Oh. Shit.” She slapped her palm to her forehead. “I’m _such_ an _idiot_.”

Scorpius laughed into her hair, patting her back. “It’s all right, love, It never occurred to me to use this place to get things done in Hogwarts, either.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You sure you’re not supposed to be in Slytherin?”

I grinned, shrugging. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”

“Oh, I like this idea of Marco helping me with my Chasers, those boys are _impossible_.” Rose looked up from Armin’s notebook with a grin. “So when can we start?”

* * *

March was infamously terrible for Quidditch here in the Scottish highlands, with blustering storms sweeping up the moors from the void of the lochs and the lake shimmering various shades of chalk each day. We still kept at practice because we were all as crazy as the weather, but this year’s March got into our heads a little more than normal. The day after Armin shared his notes on the teams, I went to (Armin forced me to) talk to the sixth and seventh years in my house who had skipped my tryouts because of a family grudge. It wasn’t easy to broach the topic of being the understudies to my younger, untrained team, and some of them turned me down, but I got a backup Seeker and a few Chasers out of it. It was a weird first practice, but with Armin on the ground yelling and me sending Bludgers to grumblers, we worked it out.

My talks with Ymir and the other captains kicked up a storm that I got caught in the middle of, swirling me around and making me forget just how little I saw Marco that month. Ymir talked to Sue at breakfast once and immediately took her under her wing, lecturing about tough love and how to woo a lady, among other colourful non-Quidditch topics. Over on my Beater side, Holly found out I was working with Hannah-and-Franz and forced her way in – which was okay, she needed flying lessons anyway. Then Eren and Mikasa showed up at a Saturday morning practice, brooms in hand and faces set. Mikasa told me later that Rose had slapped Eren in the arse with his own broom when he tried to argue back that he wasn’t going to take orders from me. I only laughed at him until the Slytherin Beaters, Leonhardt and Braun (well, Annie and Reiner now) rode in on their tails. Holly, Mikasa, and Annie discovered that they all played some Muggle grasshopper sport in the summer, and we spent a whole Beater practice learning about bowling and wickets on the neat grass of the untouched pitch.

It wasn’t just the Beaters. Weekday practices were reserved for the house teams, but weekends became a free-for-all for the positions, each clumping together in sections of the empty lawn. It was a different playing environment, working with the same people you’d play later, but training up your skills was a lot more fun when you had a rival to compete against more than once a year, and things were more likely to devolve into laughter or ground sessions than fistfights. Armin and Al – Albus Potter, for full, but no one really called him that – had taken to each other exactly like Rose and Scorpius had predicted, and got locked in debates about Muggle football on the castle steps while they watched the puppy pile with broomsticks that Saturdays had become. I was doing my homework in my lecture classes, of course, but I’d always been fast on the wing.

Kitchens meetings all but evaporated. Why would we go meet in secret when I couldn’t get two bites in my mouth at dinner without being hounded by players of any color? Of course, with the disappearance of secret meetings came the disappearance of secrecy. Even with my head stuck in the ground like I’d trained myself to do to ignore all the chatterings of the castle, I still heard whispered corridor gossip about how we’d all been brainwashed by some evil wizard trying to destroy Quidditch and shite like that. Geez, people will believe _anything_.

The last school day of March, Armin thumped his bag down on the seat next to me in Charms, sighing and leaning against the desk, running a hand through his hair. “You’d think the Quidditch teams had started wearing red armbands and hailing Hitler from the way people are going on about you,” he groaned, pulling at his hair. I huffed.

“Not on my watch.” I leant back on the desk behind me as he snarled up his hair, biting back my laugh – he’d be a walking rat’s nest for a week now. “The truth’s too easy for everyone, isn’t it?”

Armin made a strangled noise, one hand splaying out its fingers. “We don’t live in a _vacuum_ , people, it’s not like we’re ManU and Liverpool here!” He kicked his bag to the floor so he could plop down in his chair properly, shaking his hair back from his face. “All right, so maybe that’s an accurate comparison, but _still_.” He hung his head with another long-suffering sigh, then rolled his head to make a face at me. “I heard four different stories in the corridor just now and _no one_ bothered to ask me what the real one was! Disgraceful.” I laughed, pressing the back of my hand to my mouth, and he slouched forward on the desk, cheek pressed and blue eyes blinking up at me. “Let’s talk about something else.” I dropped my hand, still smiling. “How’s Marco?”

I opened my mouth, closed it into a frown. “I don’t know.” I flexed my fingers in the air as I counted back dates. “Man, I haven’t talked to him since Sunday.” I groaned and worked my hands into my hair. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me I’m being a fuckass boyfriend?”

Armin scoffed. “He knew that was coming when he asked you out, mate.” Armin sat up some to prop his chin on his hand. “He seemed… scattered, in DADA yesterday.” He shot me a very Scorpius icicle look. “And in Potions the day before.”

I snarled, stomach dropping behind it. “Fine, I get it, I’ll stop being a fuckass boyfriend and hate the shite out of him tonight, a’ight? Back off.” At the front of the auditorium, Professor Ral tapped her wand against her podium for attention, so Armin just nodded once before sitting up and turning to her for whatever bonkers assignment we’d be given for the class. I crossed my arms over my rolling stomach, fingers digging in, as I watched the light from the stained glass behind her shine off her red hair.

* * *

My plans to corner my own goddamned boyfriend at dinner that night were foiled by him not showing up.

I’d planted myself with Connie and Sasha to wait. Sasha said he’d been in Transfiguration with them before dinner, but had vanished somewhere between here and there. He’d been doing that a lot, apparently, but I’d been too distracted by having more than four people who talked to me that it’d slipped my notice. The rolling that had started brewing in my stomach during Charms roiled into a tempest as I sat there, listening to the brats make fun of me while I shoveled down whatever food could get in. I even beat Sasha to the finish line when I excused myself and took me and my bookbag out of the hall. Really, there was only one place in the castle Marco would go to disappear in the evenings.

I slipped down to the kitchens, checking for any lingering Hufflepuff eyes before I tickled the pear and vaulted in. I hadn’t been here in a while, and a few of the house-elves who’d taken a shine to me waved, but dinner was on and they had a job to do. I turned to the corner table.

Marco was there, table covered in books, papers, and a flickering display of runes overhead. But I didn’t care about that when Marco had the bench shoved back from the table to put his head between his knees.

I rushed over, but slowed to a creep when I got in range. “Marc?” He gasped – he was _trembling_ , I could see that now that I was closer. I sat next to him, dumping my bag at my feet, and rested a hand on his knee. “Love?” He keeled sideways into me, panting like he’d sprinted here from the pitch. I gave a little under his sudden weight, grunting, before I recovered and supported him, arm around his waist as he buried his face in my shoulder – his wet face. Was he _crying?_ “Hey, pet, what’s wrong?” I swallowed – dinner was _not_ gonna have an encore – as he latched onto my arm with both hands, crushing my wrist. He shook his head hard against my shoulder, and I shushed him, rubbing his back with the hand not held captive against his shaking stomach. “It’s all right, sweet, I’ve got you, I’m right here.” I kissed the top of his head at my mouth level, humming and rubbing as his heart thundered through me and he struggled to breathe.

It took a while, but bit by bit, his breathing grew less frenetic and his heartbeat quieted. A polite tug on my sleeve brought my attention to a house-elf I didn’t know the name of waiting at my elbow, holding out a glass of water, ears flicked back. I took it with a nod and craned around to put it on the table in front of Marco, struggling a bit when he refused to let go of my arm. The house-elf was hovering, but I waved him away with a smile. He ducked his head and went back to the dinner service.

Half of the pressure on my trapped arm eased. I looked over to see a tremoring hand reaching for the water. I chewed my lip as a bit sloshed onto his lap and he cursed, but I kept rubbing his back as he gulped it down between deep breaths. “Feeling better now, love?”

He shrugged against me. “Thanks.” The empty glass thunked down on the table. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.” He hiccupped, and I frowned. I’d been in Ravenclaw long enough to know a panic attack when I saw one.

“Darling.” I rested my cheek on his hair. His stomach gave under my forearm, breath gusting down my neck. “It’s my job to worry about you now.” I nuzzled into his hair, and he hiccupped again. “I’m just sorry I didn’t notice earlier.”

He shook his head against my shoulder, far hand lacing with the fingers of the arm he was holding hostage. “Not your fault, not your problem, sorry-”

“No, hun, it is. Well, not my fault, but you know what I mean.” He breathed a laugh down my arm. “I said I’d date the shite out of your, didn’t I? And that means the fun stuff and the not-so-fun stuff.” I swallowed on the lump in my throat and sat back so I could look at his face, eyes red and smile gone. He shook his fringe over his forehead, but I brushed it back, hand sliding through his hair – softer than mine was, heavier and smoother. Had I ever told him I loved his hair? The throat-lump blocked it from coming out, though. “What set it off? If you want to talk about it.”

He shrugged again, thumb pressing into my palm. “Just build up. Haven’t had one this bad in a while. A few little ones this week. Been coming here to try and calm down.” He sucked in a breath. “Didn’t work.”

“Oh, hun.” My hand in his hair slid down to cup his jaw (I loved his jaw). “You could have found me, you know.” He looked away at the chaos of the table, eyes unfocusing. “Hey, we can do this together, yeah? I’ve got most of the same stuff, and two heads are better than one.” I thumbed a salt trail on his cheek with a smile. “Three, if Ar figures out where we are and joins us.”” I dropped my hand to rest on his shoulder (his shoulders were pretty great, too). “Let’s do it one thing at a time, yeah?”

He bit his lip and buried his face in my shoulder again, squeezing my caught hand and wrapping his free arm around my waist. “You’re too good for me,” he mumbled. I squeezed back and wove my other hand into the short hair above his neck.

“Pretty sure you’ve got that sentence backwards, pet.” We sat like that for a moment while he calmed down again and I tried not to notice how my robes were soaking through. He pulled it together, though, and let go of my hand so I could stand and push the bench back to an easy distance from the table. He didn’t let me sit back down where I’d been, though, but wordlessly directly me to his right side, tangling our non-dominant hands together, jaw set. I smiled at him and poked at the flickering, floating runes with my wand.

“So, what’s due first?”

* * *

Like every other goddamned year, my birthday fell smack in the middle of Passover. I just _loved_ having crackers and applesauce instead of cake. Luckily, the house-elves had backups for the backups for all sorts of dietary restrictions, including kosher. Before I’d just picked over the table for things I could actually eat and gone hungry for a week, but having kitchen connections nipped that in the bud. I’m pretty sure a house-elf fainted when I told them that. From then on, a section of the Ravenclaw table was kosher (Hufflepuff got halaal, Gryffindor got gluten-free, and Slytherin vegan – apparently the house-elf hierarchy said it was about time), and all twenty-three of us Jewish kids in the school found our informal synagogue three times a day.

Friday, the actual day of my birthday, was just a normal day, albeit the last day of class before Easter break, crammed with homework and a kitchens captain’s party, where I got to introduce them to latkes made from scratch and Marco gave me a replacement tub of that hair stuff he’d given me back at the start of the year with a wink. Saturday, however, was a different, louder story.

“It’s your _birthday?_ ” Holly screeched from where she was climbing a tree by the edge of the lake just after dawn. I growled at Armin, who hadn’t _had_ to make that offhand comment about what Mére had sent me for it. But now the cat was out of the bag, and the clump of Beaters stretching around me heard the big news.

“It was yesterday, actually,” Armin told her, chipper as the day was cold. Menace.

Holly gasped and tumbled out of the tree, landing on her feet like a stupid cat. “And you didn’t _tell_ us? Captain!” She came over and kicked my butt – not hard, just a tap. I still shoved her so she fell onto the dead grass.

“Can it, Hardwicke.” She ignored me and flipped her curls in my face when she whipped to the other Beaters, all of us in a loose circle under the tree.

“We should _do_ something! Something fun!”

“Oh yeah?” Reiner crossed his freaking giant arm across his body, stretching out his shoulder as he grinned at her. “Got anything in mind?”

She shrugged, gesturing to the group. “I dunno, something different?”

Eren snorted. “I dunnae if you’ve noticed, but this whole bit already _is_ different.” Holly made a face at him, and he snarled back. Mikasa slapped him upside the head, and he winced and grabbed the back of his head. “Oi!”

She rolled her eyes and looked to me. “Can we just play cricket again? I need to hit something.”

I frowned, tugging at my hair. “I don’t think I’ve got the pitch today.” I drew my eyebrows together, staring at my feet pressed soles-together in front of me. “Maybe it’s Rose? No, I think it’s Marco’s week for a Saturday.” I groaned and dropped my hair. “Fuck it, I dunno who’s turn it is anymore.”

“Well let’s go ask them.” Hannah stood, using her boyfriend and Reiner as props. “Maybe whoever it is will want to join in.” She smiled as she ran off to the Chaser circle closed to us.

“Or even better, we can get up in the air and play a _real_ sport.” Reiner took the hard punch to the arm from Annie with a grin and a laugh, patting her head. Her face puckered like a lemon, but I did my best to keep my laughter to myself. He winked across the circle at me. “What you say, cap? A captains versus everyone else match?”

I recoiled. “Oh _hell_ no! We’d stomp you lot.” They all turned to me, open-mouthed. Reiner laughed, a boom that shook the lake water a few metres away.

“Is that how it is, then?” I grinned my best Ymir-wolf smile. Reiner opened his hands to the circle. “I think we know a challenge when we hear one, yeah, gents?”

Eren laughed, head thrown back, and for a second I knew why Armin liked him so much. Then he came back down in a hard stare to me, and I forgot again. “You’re going _down_ , mate.”

I jumped to my feet, heralding a wave reaction from them. “We’ll just see about that, won’t we?” I looked over my shoulder to where Hannah was crouched next to the Chasers circle, talking to Marco, the Seekers and the Keepers filling out our disjointed triangle. I cupped my hand to my mouth and yelled, “Hey everyone! Who’s up for a match?”

Rose raised her hand and called back, “What’s the play?”

“Captains versus the minions!”

Her snorty laugh was overshadowed by the minions arguing back, everyone stumbling to their feet and mixing together as we jeered and joked our way down to the empty pitch, the weak early sunlight glinting off the castle windows behind us.


End file.
